


i'll know it at the hook

by lotts (LottieAnna)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Enemies to Lovers, First Time, Getting Together, Hand Jobs, Hate Sex, M/M, Phone Sex (ish), Podfic Available, Reluctantly Caring Sex, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Slow Burn, lots of frustrations and feelings and insecurities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-20 04:40:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 51,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15526239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LottieAnna/pseuds/lotts
Summary: “I like you more when you’re honest,” Willy says.“I think we’ve established that I don’t care if you like me,” Zach says. “I just want to know if you were planning on kissing me again.”(In which Zach Hyman has a few problems with William Nylander, and a giant William Nylander problem.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> IF YOU FOUND THIS THROUGH GOOGLING, KNOW ANYONE MENTIONED IN THIS STORY PERSONALLY, OR ARE MENTIONED YOURSELF: please, please click away. This is a work of fiction and nothing written in this story is true. Any accurate information used in this story is publicly available information about public figures, the rest is made up, 100%. Please keep this work confined to fan spaces and away from the eyes of the people mentioned herein!
> 
> it takes a village, so i don't even think i can name everyone who helped, but thanks to tots, ciara, dean, corey, hailey, ellie, christa, ash, ali, and rachel <3 
> 
> this story takes place in a universe where willy hung around toronto for the summer, and is a fictional take on the offseason after the 17-18 season. i started this in june, and made decisions about the offseason that didn't actually turn out to be true (i had a hope that william nylander would sign a contract before i moved into my new apartment,,, i was a fool.) i wrote this because i had an overwhelming craving for slow burn enemies to lovers. irl these two are both super great guys and are friends, as far as i can tell, but i wanted to explore the ways in which nice people can clash with other nice people and how that changes the way they view themselves. 
> 
> have fun!

Zach doesn’t…  _ hate  _ William Nylander, per se. 

The thing is, Zach doesn’t hate anybody, and he especially doesn’t hate teammates. Hating people takes a lot of energy, and Zach doesn’t usually have the time for that; he’s too busy playing hockey, and publishing books, and trying to maintain enough of a personal life that his mom doesn’t get on his back about meeting girls. He used to remind her that he could also be meeting guys, too, but that also takes effort he doesn’t want to put in, so he pretends his parents are just using ‘girl’ as a stand-in for ‘partner’ and leaves it at that. Being hurt is exhausting, and Zach doesn’t have room in his life for that, either. 

That would be a problem, Zach hating Willy, because Zach and Willy have been linemates since forever, and it’s not like that’s gonna change any time in the near future. Zach gets Willy the puck and Willy doesn’t give the puck to anyone else, and that’s fine by Zach— if Willy is too selfish, Zach’s not gonna judge, as long as the puck keeps finding the back of the net. 

And it does, so Zach stays on Willy’s line. 

But just because Zach can work with Willy—work with him well, even—and just because Zach doesn’t hate him— 

Well. That doesn’t exactly mean he has to like him, either. 

It’s nothing personal. Willy’s a little clingy, a little loud, and laughs at literally everything, but Zach knows those aren’t reasons to  _ hate _ someone. They’re just— kind of irritating, and Zach doesn’t think he’s overstepping any bounds to extend that to say that he finds Willy kind of irritating. 

Or, pretty irritating. 

Or, okay, if he’s being honest? Incredibly irritating. 

William Nylander has never been disliked by another person, probably, and it really, really shows. Every time he smiles, Zach can tell he just expects whoever he’s directing said smile at to just, like, swoon and do whatever Willy wants them to, or at the very least, to find it charming that he tried and give in with fond reluctance. Zach’s not in any position to be calling anyone spoiled, especially someone who had to move to an entirely different country to play hockey, but Willy is— 

Okay, he’s a little spoiled. Not in terms of, like, material possessions, but— his face. He’s so good-looking that Zach bets he’s never had to do anything besides bat his eyelashes to get what he wants, and he also just acts like everything is so fucking easy, probably because it is for him.  

And that’s maybe unfair, because it’s not like Willy doesn’t work hard, but Zach works harder, and everyone knows it. Zach’s always worked harder than everyone else, and that’s just been his thing since going pro, and for all people praise his persistence and dedication, he knows that what people want are highlight reel goals, and Willy’s got a knack for those that Zach lacks. 

Zach knows that some players are just flashy, cute, used to skating circles around everyone else, but the difference with Willy is that he’s like that about  _ literally everything. _

Again, Zach knows that’s not actually true, but still— it’s been three years, and Willy has yet to show any semblance of a personality beyond laughing at strange times in a way that makes Zach feel distinctly made fun of, like he’s back in high school, popular by default because he’s good at hockey but acutely aware that in any other world, he’d be quiet, kind of a geek, kind of a loner. 

But Zach isn’t in high school, and he’s a smart, self-possessed adult, and he doesn’t appreciate the way William Nylander makes it so easy to forget that. 

…… 

The nice thing about not-quite-liking William Nylander is that Zach doesn’t actually think about him all that much when he’s not there. 

The not-quite-nice thing is that Willy is  _ always  _ there. 

Zach at least thought he’d have the offseason to himself for some Nylander-free time, but the thing is, when you’re not friends with someone, you don’t tend to discuss your plans for the summer at great length, so he’d kind of assumed that Willy was gonna be back in Sweden. Truthfully, he hadn’t thought that much about it at all, but he’s maybe unfairly disappointed when he glances at the group chat and sees a message from Willy about being around for the summer. It’s not a big thing, though, so he just puts it out of his mind. 

The start of the offseason is a little disappointing. He’d been hoping to be playing hockey for a little longer than one round, but he takes a little bit of solace in the fact that they made it one game farther than last year. It’s pretty nice to go into the summer without having a contract extension to worry about, also; he feels a little more relaxed, a little more settled. He’s got book stuff to worry about, sure, but he’s not writing either, just doing media appearances and other promotional stuff. It’s more fun than he’d expected it to be, too, because as it turns out, reading to Toronto kids when you’re a Toronto hockey player means you’ve got a captive and enthusiastic audience. 

Mostly, Zach is taking a pretty solid break right now, really using his time off to recharge, and slowly, the sting of their season ending the way it did is starting to wear off.

So between all those good things, he sort of forgets about Willy being around for the first few weeks of the offseason. 

Until he’s very abruptly reminded.

It happens when he’s wandering the concourse at Ricoh, and he’s there because the Marlies are in the Calder Cup final, and the Marlies were his team, even if only for a season. The first intermission is underway and the score is 2-1 Texas, and Zach has a feeling the vibe in the locker room is tense right now— not because of the score, necessarily, but because they’d been sloppy, and Zach could feel the tension radiating off the bench, even from the balcony seat he’d chosen in the hopes of not getting recognized. It hasn’t worked perfectly—when a Leafs player walks into a Marlies game, he’s gonna have to sign a few autographs—but it’s mostly a manageable amount of fan interaction, and Zach’s having a fine evening on his own, until he sees a group of people gathered outside the section a few over from the one he’s seated in as he’s buying a bottle of water. 

The next thing that happens is probably Zach’s fault, because he should just turn around and go back to his seat, pretend to be looking intently at his phone and hope that wards people off. But curiosity gets the better of him, and he lingers, trying to figure out what’s captured such a large group of Marlies fans’ attention. 

When the answer comes about three seconds later, Zach loses interest pretty much immediately.

Fucking— of  _ course  _ Willy’s here, in this part of the concourse, somehow surrounded by more adolescent girls than Zach would even think would be at an AHL game. It’s not like this is exactly the place to be on a Saturday afternoon in June, but Willy attracts female fans—of all ages, really, considering some of the looks the moms are giving him—like he’s some sort of magnet for rabid fangirls. 

Not that Zach can blame them for it, because Willy has boyband good looks and knows how to sell them. Fangirls will be fangirls, but that doesn’t mean Zach doesn’t get to roll his eyes at Willy for it, partially because it’s ridiculous, and maybe a little bit because Zach doesn’t have quite the same level of One Direction-esque appeal. 

Whatever, Zach has a publishing deal and a college degree, he’s not gonna feel insecure because his teammate looks like he belongs on the cover of Tiger Beat. Zach’s good looking enough, and he’s the kind of guy people take seriously when they take him home; Willy’s got sex appeal, but Zach’s got boyfriend appeal, because, unlike Willy, he takes himself seriously, so other people take him seriously. 

Zach’s starting to wonder how this train of thought turned to him having to reassure himself that he’s just as appealing as Willy, but he stops when he realizes he’s been zoning out, and at some point, Willy must have noticed him, because Zach’s eyes are suddenly locked with Willy’s. They look stupidly blue, even from all the way over here. 

Zach knows he should probably wave, or nod, or something, but before he can, Willy’s cupping his hand around his mouth, doing that annoying smirk-smile of his that everyone in the world but Zach seems to find appealing, and yelling, “Zachy!” 

Zach squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath, telling himself that it’s understandable that Willy didn’t process his  _ please do not draw attention to me  _ signals. It’s not like he’s walking around with his hood up and sunglasses on, but, at the same time, it’s not like Zach’s holding court in the concourse, so maybe Willy should have thought twice before redirecting the attention of every Leafs fan in the vicinity on Zach. 

It’s almost impressive, honestly, how consistently Willy lives up to Zach’s most annoying expectations of him, but Zach’s not gonna be rude, so he plasters a smile on and walks over. 

“Hey there,” he says. “I didn’t know you’d be here.” 

“Yeah, figured I’d come cheer on the boys,” Willy says, pushing back his hair, which isn’t something that should annoy Zach, but it kind of does, anyway.

“It’s a good league, and playoff hockey,” Zach agrees. 

“Good thing you made it here,” Willy says. “You had a— a thing earlier, yeah? For the book stuff, or whatever?”

“The book, yes,” Zach says, his smile growing more forced by the second. 

“Nice,” Willy says, holding his hand out for a fist bump, which Zach returns purely out of courtesy. He’s very aware that fans are watching them, knows they’re representing the team, so he probably shouldn’t be outwardly cold, but then Willy says, “I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet, but good on you, dude.” 

And it’s just— Zach doesn’t need Willy’s approval on his writing career, and he doesn’t actually care whether or not Willy reads his stuff, but jesus fucking christ, Zach  _ wrote a book,  _ the least his teammate could do is  _ pretend  _ to have read the free copy Zach had gotten for him. It’s a fucking picture book, too, so really, it’s not too much to ask that Willy actually read it, but Zach is willing to lower the bar below even that when it comes to his expectations re: William Nylander’s basic level of politeness. 

Somehow, Willy  _ still  _ misses it. 

“Thanks,” Zach says. “I should probably head back to my seat.” 

“Alright,” Willy says, and either the light shifts, or Willy looks a little disappointed. Zach assumes it’s the former. “If you’re not here with anyone— I have a box? If you wanna, like, join us.”

Zach doesn’t know who ‘us’ is, but he figures it’s either, (a) friends of Willy that he doesn’t know and will likely never see again, or (b) friends of his who are hanging out with Willy and not him, and he knows option (b) is probably not true, but neither of them is particularly appealing. 

“I’m actually kind of on babysitting duty, my brother and his buddy are waiting for me back at our seats,” Zach lies, and it must be close to the end of intermission, because the concourse is nearly empty. Zach’s not sure when that happened. “I should head back there.” 

“Right,” Willy says, and this time his face definitely falls. “See you around, then?” 

“Yeah, for sure!” Zach says, and then he stuffs one hand in his pocket, and lifts the other to wave. “Good to see you, man.” 

“You too,” Willy says, and for the first time in as long as Zach has known him, Willy’s smile isn’t cocky. It’s almost sad, actually, like he’d really wanted Zach to join him, but Zach likes watching hockey games alone, and even if fan interactions are work, they’re short and limited to intermission. Sitting in a box with Willy and whoever he’s with sounds a little bit like a nightmare, if Zach’s being honest, and he’s just not in the mood right now. 

So maybe Willy’s a little disappointed, but he’ll live. They’re not friends, just teammates, and it’s the offseason, so Zach can afford to not care a little. 

…… 

For the record: Zach doesn’t lie that much. 

That’s probably why, the first time he does, it all blows up in his face. 

Zach wakes up to a billion notifications from a bunch of new group chats, all comprising various combinations of teammates, but none of which include Willy, which is the first indication that something’s wrong. Most of the messages are from Mitch, with Mo and Naz occasionally contributing, and while a few are just short and confused one-word texts, there are a few that are paragraphs-long, and say things like,  _ look, I don’t know what’s going on with you and Willy, but…  _ and  _ team chemistry still matters over the summer...  _

So, in other words, Zach wakes up to find that he’s being yelled at. 

From what he can piece together, something had been going around Twitter about Zach sitting alone at the game, and Mitch had sent it to Willy, for some reason, and Willy had told Mitch that Zach had straight-up lied to his face, and Mitch had involved everyone else, thinking there was some huge feud, or whatever. 

It’s an overreaction. Obviously, it’s an overreaction. Zach likes Willy as much as he has for three years; it just so happens that Zach’s never liked him all that much, and it’s never been a problem before. He’s pretty sure they’ve never given off the impression of being particularly close. If people mistake Zach’s politeness towards him for friendship, that’s their problem. 

The thing is, Zach’s nice, but he can’t make himself like someone, especially not someone like Willy. He’s dismissive, rude, self-centered, and, like, maybe everyone else lets him get away with it because they like looking at him enough that it doesn’t bother them, but Zach isn’t gonna make an effort to be friends with someone who, more often than not, can’t be bothered to meet the basic standards of politeness. 

But, like, of fucking course, the one time Zach’s an asshole and Willy’s all wounded over it, it ends up on Twitter, and half the fucking team gets involved. 

“Dude, you’re preaching to the choir here,” Brownie says, after Zach says all this to him in a ten-minute tirade that takes up most of the drive to lunch. “Willy’s funny, but he’s kind of a dick sometimes.” 

“You think he’s funny?” 

“Sometimes,” Brownie says, shrugging. “Mostly he’s just a dick. Like— he laughs about the most random shit, and half the time, I can’t tell if he’s saying weird stuff to fuck with my head.” 

“Right!” Zach says. “I don’t know, I didn’t want to watch one game with the guy, and suddenly I’m the worst person in the world?” 

“Just say it was a misunderstanding,” Brownie says. “Mitchy’s just bored ‘cause Matts is out of town, so he has nothing better to do.” 

“Can’t he get a real hobby,” Zach grumbles, but he texts something like,  _ there’s no beef don’t worry about it,  _ then mutes pretty much everyone. It’s not his finest moment, but it’s almost always better to not turn things into a big deal unnecessarily. They’ll probably assume that Zach’s handling things with Willy one-on-one, and won’t hold it against him if Willy doesn’t say anything, and Willy probably won’t say anything, because even he’s gotta get the message at some point. 

He does consider actually texting Willy, but decides against it. If Willy’s hurt, he can reach out himself, but, like— they’re not friends. Zach might’ve been rude, but he’s done a decent job putting the whole thing behind him with minimal boat rocking. It’s not that he wants to be mean, but he also doesn’t owe Willy actual companionship, just basic decency, and, like— 

Maybe he should reach out directly. Maybe he could. 

He doesn’t want to, though, and if that makes him kind of an asshole, then— like, fine, fuck it, he’s an asshole.

Zach is a generally nice guy, and he puts a lot more effort into things than most people, but he needs a break from being the bigger person sometimes, and considering Willy almost never has to be the bigger person, Zach doesn’t feel all that bad about taking the low road, for once. 

…… 

The first time Zach sees Willy after the Marlies incident, it’s at a gay bar, and Zach is pretty drunk, so the evening’s already not off to a great start. 

It’s loud, and Zach goes from decently steady to nearly stumbling into a waiter as soon as he sees Willy, the combination of guilt, bewilderment, and alcohol proving to be too much for his balance. He’s not sure why Willy’s in a gay bar in the first place, and he’s not sure if he can ask; honestly, he’s not sure at all what he’s gonna do, if he should apologize or not, if he should approach Willy at all. 

Fortunately or unfortunately, Zach doesn’t have to decide, because Willy walks up to him, some kind of blended drink—a piña colada, maybe?—dangling precariously in his hand, which means they’re both on the wrong side of shitfaced. 

“So,” Willy says, raising an eyebrow at him as he stirs his drink. “Is your brother with you tonight, too?” 

They’re doing this, then. 

“Listen—” 

“No, it’s okay, I get it,” Willy says, cutting him off. “You just thought that I was  _ so _ desperate to hang out with you that I would be heartbroken if you said no, right?” 

“I didn’t think that,” Zach says, trying to sound patient.

“Oh, you definitely did,” Willy says. “But it’s okay, because I know you don’t like me, and I don’t like you either.” 

“I don’t—” Zach shakes his head a little, trying to clear his thoughts and only partially succeeding. “I shouldn’t have lied. It was a bad choice.” 

“Can you stop speaking to me like I’m a little kid?” Willy snaps. 

“I’m not speaking to you like you’re a little kid, I’m speaking to you like a reasonable person,” Zach says, and this time, he doesn’t quite manage to keep the snap out of his voice. 

“No, you’re being passive-aggressive, and trying to pass it off as reasonable,” Willy says. “I’m not an idiot, Zach.” 

“I’m just trying to apologize. I’m being  _ polite,”  _ Zach says, and he’s rapidly losing control of the friendly facade that usually keeps him from being a dick to Willy, even when he deserves it. 

The thing is, though, that friendly facade is exhausting to maintain, and everything’s already blowing up, and Zach is just— he’s tired, and annoyed, and drunk, and sick of being ambushed by his William Nylander problem at every turn. 

“You’re apologizing for lying by lying even more,” Willy says. “Everyone thinks you’re nice, but really, you’re just an asshole who’s good at hiding it.” 

A William Nylander problem that should have been a non-issue, except no one will let him deal with it in peace. 

“If you’re not gonna accept my apology, I’m just gonna—” 

“I’ll accept it when you mean it,” Willy says. “You don’t like me, Zach.”

“Can you shut up?” Zach says. 

“Why should I?” 

“Because—” Zach looks around them; no one seems to be paying them much attention, but he lowers his voice anyway. “Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend my offseason dealing with whatever rumors will start if some bored beat reporter gets wind of the two of us fighting in a gay bar.” 

Willy seems to accept that, albeit with an amount of reluctance that Zach finds immensely satisfying. “Fine,” he says. “Meet me out back in ten.” 

“Okay,” Zach says, crossing his arms, and he feels like a petulant teenager. He hates it, and he hates Willy for bringing it out in him, but thankfully, Willy’s face is out of his sight before Zach can give in to his overwhelming urge to punch it. 

In the ten minutes before Zach is supposed to meet Willy outside, he goes to the bar and does a shot. He’s suddenly feeling much soberer, like letting out even a small sliver of the three years of anger he’s built up toward Willy had taken a lot out of him. It ends up taking Zach twelve minutes, in reality, but even Zach’s compulsive need to be on time has to draw a line somewhere, and that line is stressing out over being late to something with William Nylander, who has never been on time for anything, ever, in all the years Zach has known him. 

Apparently things change, though, because Willy’s already out back when Zach gets there, angrily pushing around the remaining slush of whatever his drink had been. 

“You know,” Willy says, before Zach gets a chance to start the reasonable conversation he’d been hoping for, “You’re not better than me.” 

Zach doesn’t know why he was even going to bother trying; friendship with William Nylander isn’t possible, and apparently civility isn’t an option, so really, Zach has no reason to put any effort into this. 

“You’re not supposed to bring those glasses outside, you know,” Zach says, and he expects it to be harsh, but Willy just looks at him like,  _ so?,  _ like he couldn’t care less. It’s an expression Zach’s not used to seeing on him, and it doesn’t quite get under his skin, but pierces deeper, at some deep-seated insecurities that Zach knows he should be over by now, but just can’t shake. 

“I’ll bring it back in, don’t worry,” Willy says, rolling his eyes. “It’s not your job to worry.” 

“I’m just saying, you don’t get a free pass to be a dick to the people who work here just because you’re—” Zach gestures in his direction. “You know.” 

“A hockey player?” Willy asks, all fake-innocence, Zach can tell. 

“Let’s go with that,” Zach says, sarcastic. “You’re so— you don’t even realize that the world just bends for you every time you ask it to, do you?” 

“Oof, that’s fancy,” Willy says. “I can tell why you write books now.” 

“Good to see you remembered I write sometimes,” Zach says. “How’s that free copy treating you, by the way? Still collecting dust?” 

“Fucking— are you seriously mad about that? It’s a kid’s book, Zach, it’s with my kid sisters. In Sweden.” 

Zach feels a little mollified by that, but not much, and he’s still full of rage for Willy’s general Willy-ness, so he doesn’t back down. “You could’ve read it first, or, like, said something— whatever, I don’t even know why I’m fucking surprised.”

“So, wait, let me get this straight— you’re mad that I didn’t read your book? That’s why?”

“I’m mad that you’ve never thought about another fucking human being in your entire life,” Zach says. “You’re just so fucking full of yourself, and that’s fine, but not everyone wants to hang around that when we have, I don’t know,  _ real  _ friends. Or just anyone besides you.”

“Or no one?”

“Jesus fuck— I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, okay? Not all of us are falling all over ourselves to get a chance to hang out with you.”

“I don’t think that,” Willy says. 

“Well, you act like you do,” Zach says. 

“Oh, I see what’s happening,” Willy says. “You’re just so insecure that you think I’m this raging narcissist—” 

“Seriously?” 

“Yes, seriously,” Willy says. “You do think you’re better than me, don’t you, and you hate that you don’t believe it.” 

“Oh my god, can you just shut up, for once in your life?” Zach says, and he’s annoyed, and also— god, he fucking  _ hates  _ Willy, and his stupid attempts at analyzing his insecurities, because fuck that, Zach is way better at that than William Nylander could ever hope to be. 

“I thought we were talking about this once and for all,” Willy says. 

“There’s no once and for all,” Zach says. “I just don’t like you, okay?” 

“Well, fine, then I don’t like you,” Willy says. 

“Good,” Zach says. “Do what you want, I don’t care.” 

“Oh, you  _ so  _ care,” Willy says. “You just want me to hate you on your terms.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night.” 

“Whatever you need to tell yourself to pretend you’re still the great guy everyone thinks you are,” Willy says. “You know, you’re just a jealous, insecure guy who can’t  _ stand  _ to think that maybe he’s just kind of a dick.” 

“You’re such an asshole, you know that?” 

“You’ve mentioned it once or twice,” Willy says, and Zach thinks that should be the end of that, so he tries to go back inside, except— 

Willy’s hand is around his wrist. 

“What are you doing?” Zach asks, but Willy’s just staring at him, like he’s having some sort of realization. 

“I—” Willy says. “I  _ hate  _ you.” 

And Zach’s gonna say something to that, like,  _ good for you,  _ except he can’t, because then, Willy’s mouth is on his. 

Kissing him, he realizes, half a beat too late. 

By the time his brain catches up to what his body is doing, he’s already kissing Willy back, which just— it doesn’t make any sense, is the thing, because Zach doesn’t like Willy. Willy is annoying, and pampered, and it feels like everyone is giving him everything he wants every second of the fucking day— 

But he’s kissing Zach in a way that no one’s ever kissed Zach before, like he truly just does not like him and this is his backwards way of expressing that. 

Zach doesn’t choose to kiss back, so much as just reflexively does, but once his senses catch up to him, he keeps kissing him, because it’s just a little bit intoxicating, refreshing, almost, like they’re fighting with their mouths, without any words, just— action. 

Still, Zach pushes him off. Even if he would want to choose to kiss Willy back, he knows it’s a bad idea, probably, even if he can’t figure out why. 

“What are you doing?” Zach says, going for angry but coming up breathless. 

“I don’t know,” Willy says, his face blank, his voice neutral with shock. “I really don’t like you.” 

“You have a weird way of showing it,” Zach says, but he means  _ we  _ have a weird way of showing it, because even if Willy had kissed him first, whatever that was— it was both of them. 

“I have no idea what came over me,” Willy says, and then he shakes his head a little, like he’s trying to clear his thoughts. “Don’t tell anyone about this.” 

“I wasn’t planning on it.” 

“The kissing, I mean,” Willy says. “Or, just, seeing me here.” 

It takes Zach a second. “I might not be your friend, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna, like, out you.” 

“Okay,” Willy says, looking a little relieved, but still on edge. “Same.” 

Zach shrugs. “Well, it’s not exactly a secret.” 

“It’s not?” Willy says, furrowing his brow. “I didn’t—” 

“We’re not friends, remember?” Zach says, and now his whole head is spinning, because a lot of things are happening at once, and he’s still pretty drunk, and can still feel where Willy’s lips had been pressed hard against his. 

“Right,” Willy says, and he’s poised to turn around and go, but he’s not moving. Zach doesn’t  _ want  _ him to move, either, which is maybe the first time he’s actively wanted William Nylander to be with him in a non-hockey context. 

“I’m not here with anyone, so we don’t have to, like, stagger going back in,” Zach says. 

“Neither am I,” Willy says. “Did you have anything else you wanted to say?” 

If Zach did, he doesn’t remember it, because Willy had probably kissed it out of him. “No.” 

“I think I’m gonna stay out here,” Willy says. “I need the air.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Zach says, even though staying out here seems like something he’d also like to do; he probably can’t, though, not if Willy’s out here. 

So he makes his way back inside, and, somehow, carries on with his night. He meets a few guys, buys a few drinks, but sticks to water for himself for the rest of the evening, like somehow that will wash the feeling of Willy off his lips. 

It doesn’t, though, and neither does the water he splashes on his face in the bathroom as he’s trying to make sense of what happened, and neither does the conversation with a promising cute grad student. 

Zach doesn’t want to know if kissing someone else will wipe the feeling away, and there are some answers to that question that he’s not quite ready to hear, so. He doesn’t test it. 

…… 

It gets harder to not think about Willy, after that. 

On the one hand, it makes sense, because whatever went down between them was a definitive  _ thing, _ but on the other hand, Zach feels like he should be able to go back to not liking Willy in peace. But that doesn’t happen, because Zach can’t stop replaying the night in his head, the fight, the kiss, the fact that Willy had been there, and hadn’t even known Zach wasn’t straight before he just went ahead and kissed him. 

And also, like— of course it pisses him off, because Zach wouldn’t even have anything to think about if Willy hadn’t kissed him, and he wonders if maybe that had been some plan of Willy’s, like he couldn’t stand the idea of Zach just living his life without Willy somehow being at the center of it, so he went ahead and did something just because he knew it would bother Zach for the rest of his life. 

Not that Zach thinks Willy’s smart enough for that, and not that Willy’s, like, the center of Zach’s life right now, but he’s got this annoying habit of popping into Zach’s head at random times— like, he’ll be in the grocery store and catch a glimpse of blonde hair, and suddenly, he’s thinking about the way Willy’s cheeks had been pink, at least at the very top, and how he’d kissed Zach with such expert, angry confidence that Zach would almost respect it, if he didn’t hate the fact that he was thinking about it in the first place. 

The more Zach thinks about it, the more pissed off he gets, and that, he tells himself, is why he finds himself on William Nylander’s doorstep one afternoon, almost a week after the whole encounter. 

He’s prepared with a rant, feels the adrenaline building as he waits for Willy to answer the door, and that makes it that much worse when it opens and it’s Kappy on the other side. 

“Hi,” Zach says, hoping that he sounds calm even though his brain is a loop of  _ oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. _

“Hey, man,” Kappy says. “‘sup?” 

“Not much, um— is Willy here?” 

Kappy shakes his head, his face neutral. 

“Okay, well, do you know when he’ll be back?” Zach asks, his voice going strangely high, the way it used to when he talked to parents or teachers. 

“No clue,” Kappy says, laid-back as ever. “You can text him?” 

“Right,” Zach says, and he hates how jittery he is, all of a sudden, feels out of place and too big and too young, all at once. “See you, then.” 

“Later,” Kappy says with a nod, and if he finds Zach’s exit abrupt, he doesn’t let it show. 

Zach speedwalks back to the car, his face hot with humiliation, angry at himself for being an idiot and being this worked up, and Willy for not being there and starting this whole thing in the first place. 

He wants to take deep breaths, but they’re just— they’re not happening, or if they are, they’re not helping, so when he gets to his car, he closes the door and yells, “Fuck!,” hitting his leg harder than he means to. 

It’s not great, but it calms him down enough that he’s able to drive home, music from an unfamiliar station turned up louder than he normally likes. 

…… 

_ Willy: heard u made a house call  _

Zach stares at the text for about ten minutes, and, to his credit, does not throw his phone across the living room.

_ Zach: it was nothing, dw bout it _

_ Willy: u sure bout that?  _

This time, Zach has to take a few yoga breaths before responding. Dicky would be proud, probably. 

_ Zach: yep _

Willy doesn’t text back, and Zach wishes he didn’t kind of want him to. 

…… 

The next time Zach sees Willy face-to-face is the next time he’s at that same bar. 

This time, Zach’s here with friends, but he just happens to see Willy as soon as he steps inside, totally by accident. Or at least, Zach hopes it’s an accident, because he’d really not prefer to be in some weird state of mind where he’s subconsciously seeking out William Nylander in every crowd he sees. But it’s definitely Willy, who, by some miracle, doesn’t notice Zach back; he’s at a table with some girls Zach doesn’t recognize, and he’s chatting animatedly, probably doing his awful hyena laugh, too. 

Zach’s with a high school buddy and his friend from out of town, which is fun, but also means the conversation keeps drifting to stuff he can’t quite keep up with. Talking to non-hockey people makes Zach acutely aware of how much of his world is just hockey. Relative to the average hockey player, Zach likes to think he’s mildly up-to-date and connected to the world at large, but that still puts him out of touch with most of culture. He would regret it more, if hockey wasn’t something he loved so goddamn much, and he wasn’t living out multiple childhood dreams. 

But still, when Zach's focus wanders, his eyes wander, and it seems like every time he looks up, Willy’s still right there, even though he’s moving, talking to different people, on his phone or at the bar or back with the same girls from before, but also a few more people, and then just one of the girls, and then both girls are gone and replaced with some guy who’s leaning in close and laughing at jokes that Zach would bet real money aren’t actually all that funny.

At first, Zach tries not to fixate on what Willy and the guy are doing, but after a few drinks, it becomes harder to not stare. It’s not that Zach is jealous, but he is feeling a lot of uneasy things that remind him of jealousy, which he fucking hates. 

The guy glances over at Zach, and he quickly looks away, but when he lets himself check again, Willy’s leaning in closer to him, and his eyes are fixed firmly on Zach. 

For a second, it’s like they’re the only two people in the room, this weird standoff where Zach wants nothing more than for Willy to take his hand off that guy, or any other guy, or anyone else— which is weird, because Zach’s not even sure he’s ready to admit to himself how much he wants Willy’s hands on him instead. 

This is maybe the most Zach has ever hated Willy, and also maybe the most he’s ever wanted another person. Everything’s frozen, everyone’s face is blurry but Willy’s, and Zach wants to scream, wants to get up, walk over there, and pull Willy’s hand off this guy’s arm himself— 

And then Willy fucking smiles at him, like he knows exactly what he’s doing, and Zach takes a sharp, angry inhale. 

He  _ hates  _ him, hates his cheeks and his hair and his eyes and his terrible, terrible mouth, even though he still can’t forget what it felt like, still wants to feel it again. 

There’s not much else he can do besides tear his eyes away and focus very intently on the conversation the guys are having, and when he sees an out, he tells them he’s tired and should probably get going for the night, and as he walks out of the bar, he doesn’t check to see if Willy’s looking.

And that’s maybe why he finds himself cancelling the Uber he’d called and wandering to the alley behind the bar a few minutes after he’d told his friends he was leaving. 

Well, technically, it’s his own stupidity that causes that to happen, because Zach could and should just fucking go, but a part of him can’t help but wonder if Willy stayed behind, holding onto some stupid hope that the whole standoff hadn’t just been in his head. 

By the time he’s rounding the corner, he’s convinced himself that he’d made the whole thing up, which makes it pretty jarring when Willy’s there, an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth. 

“Don’t tell me you smoke now,” Zach says, not quite believing any of this is happening.  

Willy rolls his eyes. “No shit,” he says. “A guy offered me this as he was leaving.” 

“And you said yes?” 

“Well, I didn’t wanna throw it on the ground,” Willy says. “Tell the stick up your ass not to worry, I’m not gonna light it.” 

“I don’t care if you do,” Zach says, because he doesn’t, that’s the trainers’ job, and also Willy’s job. 

He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and examines it, holding it delicately between two fingers. “Think I’d look cool if I started smoking?” 

“Did you watch a James Dean movie recently, or something?” 

“No,” Willy says. “I’m just saying, smoking looks cool, even if everyone pretends they find it gross.” 

“Something can be gross and look cool,” Zach says, because he’s pretty sure Willy’s trying to bait him into being a buzzkill, and he’s not gonna give in. 

Willy shrugs, then tucks the cigarette behind his ear, which Zach thinks looks fucking dumb, but he doesn’t comment on it. 

“Why’d you come back here?” Willy asks. 

“Why did you?” 

“Wanted to see if you would,” Willy says, and then he smirks, that same way he always does that drives Zach up the fucking wall. 

“You looked pretty busy in there,” Zach says. 

Willy looks in the direction of the door. “Eh,” he says, turning back to Zach. “If I want to, I’ll find him again.” 

“You sound confident,” Zach says. 

“I sound a lot of things,” Willy says, all fake-mysterious, but Zach can’t actually figure out what it means, because William Nylander has never once in his life made sense. 

“Listen, if you’re being weird because you’re annoyed that we fought—” 

“We didn’t fight, you don’t like me,” Willy says. “It’s liberating, actually.” 

“What?” 

“Well, when you were pretending to like me— I was always worried that you were, like, judging? But now I don’t care what you think.” 

“Did you care that much before?” 

“I cared a normal amount,” Willy says. “Now I care less than you, it’s pretty awesome.” 

“You don’t know how much I care what you think,” Zach says. 

Willy raises an eyebrow, and Zach hates these fucking mind games, and decides, right then, that he’s done with them. 

“Why did you kiss me,” Zach says flatly. 

“Because I wanted to.” 

“No shit, but why?” Zach says. “You don’t like me.” 

“You don’t like me, but you kissed back,” Willy points out.

“Well, you’re a good kisser,” Zach says, and it’s almost a blurt, but if Willy’s gonna have no shame, he’s gonna stand by that, because fuck if it’s not true. A bad kiss doesn’t stay with you for a whole week, keep you up at night, and drive you out of your skin because you can’t forget it. 

“I like you more when you’re honest,” Willy says. 

“I think we’ve established that I don’t care if you like me,” Zach says. “I just want to know if you were planning on kissing me again.” 

“Why?” 

“Don’t be an idiot, you know why.” 

Willy looks him up and down, appraising, and he actually has the nerve to fucking giggle at that. 

“Stop,” Zach says. 

“Stop what?” Willy says, still grinning like Zach’s the punchline of the funniest joke he’s ever heard. 

“Laughing,” Zach says. “Quit being a brat.”

“What, I’m not allowed to laugh?” 

Zach knows he’s at a disadvantage here, because he can’t really pull off sexy the way Willy does, but he knows he’s got some looks on his side, and also huge arms that he’s currently using to invade Willy’s space. He knows this is exactly what Willy wants from him, but this is a game of confidence, not good choices, so Zach commits to it as he plants one hand on the wall, right above Willy’s shoulder, and puts the other on Willy’s bicep. 

Willy’s face turns a little red, and his smile falters slightly, his eyes going wide and a little dark. 

“I just don’t see what’s so funny,” Zach says. 

Willy’s breath is hot, and Zach can feel the edges of it. He moves closer, because Willy seems to invite that, wants it even, maybe, and when Zach’s thigh lands between Willy’s legs, he watches as Willy gasps, eyelids fluttering shut. He rocks against Zach’s thigh, and Zach can feel Willy’s dick harden at that, and it’s the worst thing Zach could ever know, how pretty Willy looks when he’s all turned on and flushed, but when Willy meets his gaze again, Zach can’t find a trace of laughter in his face. 

For the first time, Willy looks serious about something that’s not hockey. 

Willy looks serious about  _ Zach.  _

“I…” Willy says, his voice trailing off, and Zach is probably the worst person in the world for enjoying this as much as he does, but that’s not stopping him from enjoying it. 

“You?”

“I don’t like you,” Willy says, but he rocks down on Zach’s leg. 

“Some part of you does.” 

“Shut up,” Willy says, his face going redder with embarrassment. “You’re into it too.” 

Zach shrugs, and doesn’t deny it, because he has no reason to; they both know Willy’s right. 

“So?” 

“So what?” 

“Are you gonna—” Willy gulps. “What’s your plan, here?” 

“I asked first,” Zach says, leaning in, and he’s officially got no clue what game they’re playing, but he feels a little bit like he’s winning. 

He also feels a little bit like Willy wants him to win. 

“You should kiss me.”

“Why?” Zach asks, even though he knows he’s going to anyway. 

“Because you want to.” 

“And?” 

Willy bites his lips, looks down at Zach’s lips, then back up at his eyes. “Because I want you to.” 

That’s when Zach leans in and kisses him, hard and fast and victorious, putting his hands in Willy’s hair and knocking the stupid cigarette onto the ground, which is maybe the closest he gets to processing the world around him, because he’s so zeroed in on Willy, all of a sudden— not as a person, but as a series of sensations. Willy is the biting kiss against Zach’s mouth, the hands tangled in Zach’s shirt, the desperate noise vibrating in Zach’s ears, the roll of hips against Zach’s hips. He’s a pull, just this ball of anger and want, kind of like the one building in Zach’s stomach. 

He doesn’t like Willy, but he likes the way not liking him feels, if not liking him is fierce and heavy and sharp like this. Willy certainly likes it too, and Zach is into how Willy seems to be fighting back, not meanly, but not exactly nicely, either. For the first time, it feels like their not-friendship is a level playing field, where Willy is as annoyed as Zach with how tangled up they are for two people who just don’t fit together. 

Zach loves hearing the frustration in Willy’s voice, loves it as he moves to plant kisses down his neck, loves it as his teeth accidentally scrape Willy’s collarbone, and loves it most when he leaves a large, deep bruise, biting down until he hears Willy’s breath catch before he goes back to marking him up. He’s pretty sure Willy wants him to bite even harder, but even if Zach doesn’t like Willy, he doesn’t actually want to hurt him. If Willy wants to be— that’s something he’s gonna have to ask for, and he doesn’t, so Zach just leaves the mark, teasing at the edge of pain. 

“Fuck,” Willy breathes out, “Please tell me you’re gonna touch me.” 

“If you ask nicely,” Zach says, and he doesn’t know where the fuck  _ that  _ came from, but apparently it works, because he can feel Willy shiver at it, and god, Zach may not know what he’s doing right now, but whatever it is, he likes it way more than he should. 

“God.” Willy rolls his hips against Zach’s, presses up against him like he’s gonna rub off on him, jeans and all, if Zach doesn’t get a hand on him soon. 

Zach keeps going, though. “Say it.” 

“Touch me,” Willy says, quick and easy and not at all what Zach had been expecting.

“Jesus,” he says, right in Willy’s ear. “You’re so easy for me.” He cups the front of Willy’s pants, feels his hard cock strain against the zipper, and Zach hadn’t even realized he was this far gone. It makes everything feel just a little bit heavier, a little more real. “You don’t even  _ like  _ me.” 

“I like your hand on my dick,” Willy says, bucking his hips up, totally shameless. 

“Who said anything about hands?” Zach says. 

Willy looks genuinely scared for a second, like he’s afraid Zach’s just fucking with him, so Zach tugs Willy’s hips closer to his, reminding him that he’s hard too, and that he’s just as into this. Then, he nips at Willy’s neck once before he starts kissing, tugging at the collar of his shirt with one hand as the other runs under the hem and up Willy’s stomach. Zach’s not actually gonna take Willy’s shirt off, but he kind of wishes he could, because he wants to leave marks all over his torso, run his hands over Willy’s skin and watch the way he trembles, but they’re outside, and he’s pretty sure leaning against a brick wall shirtless is the wrong kind of uncomfortable, at least for what they’re doing. 

When Zach tugs at Willy’s belt, he can feel Willy’s breath, full of relief and anticipation and want, and a part of Zach thinks about just sticking his hand into Willy’s boxers and getting him off as fast as possible, but he’d meant what he said before. He’s never been the kind of guy to just jerk someone off in an alleyway and call it a night, and he’s not gonna start tonight.

Then again, he’s also never been the kind of guy to get on his knees in an alleyway and suck the dick of a teammate he doesn’t particularly like, but that seems like a small step up, and their options are pretty limited. 

Willy’s looking down at him with this furious kind of awe, like the reality of what’s happening is just catching up to him and he can’t believe that Zach’s about to do this, which is probably fair, because Zach also can’t believe he’s about to do this, but he can see Willy’s dick straining against the fabric of his boxers through his fly, and that makes sense to Zach, at least. He doesn’t have to understand want to recognize it. 

“Is it better for you like this?” Zach asks, trailing a finger over the outline of Willy’s hard cock. “Because you don’t like me?”

“That’s between me and my therapist,” Willy says, not missing a beat, which is pretty impressive considering that his voice is strangled and breathy and just generally kind of wrecked. 

Zach hasn’t even touched him yet, and he’s already this far gone, and that’s a heady feeling, knowing he’s doing this to Willy. 

He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, but he likes this, likes it so much more than he ever thought he could like anything involving Willy, or anything that makes him feel this much regret before he’s even done it.

“Don’t move,” Zach says, not quite a command, but not too far off. 

“Does this mean the teasing portion of the evening is over?” 

Zach rolls his eyes and doesn’t think about how he really shouldn’t feel as sure about this as he does. “Are you gonna keep up the charming banter while your dick’s in my mouth?”

“Depends how good you are,” Willy says, and it’s the most obvious taunt in the world, but Zach gives into it and yanks Willy’s boxers down just enough to get his cock out, then gets to work. 

Zach doesn’t have, like, a philosophy on blowjobs, or whatever, but he thinks that there are a few things that are hard to fuck up. Like, if you listen to see what the other person likes, get a steady rhythm going, and generally put in a reasonable amount of effort, there’s a solid chance you’ll end up giving a halfway decent blowjob. If you really fine tune those skills, halfway decent turns into great, and over the years, Zach’s gotten pretty good reviews. And like, he obviously doesn’t care if Willy thinks he’s an unforgettably gifted lover, or whatever, but he has a reputation for putting in effort and he likes to live up to it. 

There’s also a chance that Zach’s competitive instinct is kicking in, and even though he fully intends for this to be the first and last blowjob that ever occurs between himself and William Nylander, he wants Willy to know that if it were a contest, Zach would win. 

Based on the noises Willy is making, Zach would guess that he knows. 

“Holy fucking shit,” Willy says, but it comes out more like  _ holyfuckingshit,  _ the words rushing together as his hips buck up into Zach’s mouth. He’s already in pretty far, because Zach’s a straight-to-the-good-stuff kind of guy, so Zach gently presses his hips back against the wall. 

Willy looks down at him, and when Zach looks up to meet his eye, Willy lets out a snort. 

“Sorry, it’s not—” Willy says, as Zach pauses, dick still in his mouth but feeling more than mildly irritated. “You just have a very expressive face.” 

There’s something very satisfying about the way Willy’s voice sounds breathless, but Zach pulls off anyway, folding his arms. “And my expression is funny?” 

“Just— calm,” Willy says, waving a hand. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be a dick, I swear.” 

“I don’t care,” Zach says, putting a hand around Willy’s dick and jerking him off, watching the way it makes Willy’s eyes flutter shut. 

“You’re really good at this, you know that?” 

Zach almost bites back a ‘yes,’ but figures that Willy wouldn’t, so. “When you want a second date, you learn to make the first one good.” 

“You put out on the first date?” Willy says, the last words caught in a gasp as Zach laps at the head of his dick once, teasing. 

“I’m putting out now.” 

“What, this counts as a date?” 

“You ask a lot of questions, you know that?” Zach says. 

“I’m a curious guy,” Willy says.

“Well, I can give you answers, or I can suck your dick, but I can’t do both, so—” 

Willy shifts, tugging his pants down a little lower with this stupid shimmy that is totally ridiculous and not in any way sexy. “Okay, okay, I’ll be quiet.” 

“That’s a first,” Zach says, and when he puts his mouth back on Willy’s dick, he feels more pleased than he should with the way Willy groans at it, and the way he can taste a bit of precome in his mouth, and the way he has to gently press Willy’s hips down again as a gentle reminder not to buck up.

It’s not long before Willy’s tugging on his hair, and then he’s coming with a choked-off sound, the kind of thing that Zach will probably linger on for a while, wondering what it would’ve sounded like if Willy hadn’t felt the need to hold back. 

He swallows, because when he does a job, he does it thoroughly, but he’s almost disappointed that Willy is finished already. It’s objectively convenient that it’s over, and he knows it— they’re in public, and he wouldn’t want to be caught on his knees in the alley behind a gay bar with any teammate, not even one he likes, and certainly not Willy, but the thing is, Zach hadn’t been worried about getting caught, not enough that it made him enjoy it any less, or maybe not enough, period. He should have been more worried, maybe, but it was hard to focus on that when he had William Nylander’s dick in his mouth. 

It’s still hard to focus on now, as he’s watching Willy come down from his orgasm, his cheeks flushed and his eyes glazed over and half-lidded. His hair is a mess, and his breathing is ragged and uneven, and it’s— well, it’s actually kind of similar to the way Willy looks after practice, if Zach’s being honest, except then Willy opens his eyes and looks at Zach, and that’s— 

It’s definitely not the way Willy looks after practice, for one. 

It’s like all the parts of fear that aren’t scary are written into Willy’s face, legible from the way his eyes are wide and baffled and bright, and he looks flustered, more taken apart than Zach’s ever seen him. His mouth is hanging open ungracefully, kind of gaping, like he thinks he should speak and has no clue what to say, or how to form words at all. He looks a little wrecked, and in all the years Zach’s known Willy, he’s never seen that in him before. Even when he’s winded after hours of skating, even when he’s so bruised he winces when he puts his pads on, even when the team can’t seem to buy a win at the same time Willy can’t seem to get the puck in the back of the net— he’s never been broken by it before, has always been able to carry himself like the pressure and pain just rolls off his back.

“Uh,” Willy says, still staring at Zach blankly.

Right now, Willy looks— young. Or like, most of the time, Willy looks older than he is, but right now, the guy in front of Zach is undeniably twenty-two years old, the pretty boy with more good looks and talent than he knows what to do with that Zach always thought had to lie beneath the exterior of total self-assurance. 

“I should head out,” Zach finds himself saying, but it’s more like he should want to head out. Right now, he wants to press his forehead to Willy’s thigh and breathe in the way he smells, wondering how much of their sweat mingled together, how much of the wetness on Willy’s dick is his spit and how much is Willy’s come. 

He doesn’t do any of that, though, just puts some space between them, still not quite ready to stand up as he watches Willy furiously tuck himself back into his boxers and pull up his jeans. 

“You should head out,” Willy echoes. “I should also head out.” 

“Right,” Zach says. 

“Right,” Willy agrees, and then he zips up his pants and looks at Zach. “I still don’t like you, you know.” 

“No shit,” Zach says. “I still don’t like you.” 

“You liked sucking my dick,” Willy points out.

“You liked it when I sucked your dick.” 

Willy shrugs. “I guess.” He turns away, but Zach can see some of the pink crawl back into his cheeks. “Didn’t know you did stuff like that.” 

“Like what?” 

“Like— never mind,” Willy says, shaking his head like he’s trying to clear his thoughts. “You should go.” 

“So should you.” 

Zach’s half-hard, and Willy’s looking at him still, and he can’t fucking  _ move.  _

“What—” Zach starts, but then Willy moves towards him—more of a flinch, really—and before either of them can really process what’s happening, Zach’s being pulled in for another kiss, or maybe he’s pulling Willy in, because they’re going at it too fast for Zach to split hairs about who started what. It’s filthy, the way Willy must be tasting his own come, and Zach has never been into something  _ because  _ it’s been wrong until now, but fuck,  _ fuck.  _

It’s only a few seconds like that, but then there’s a siren piercing the air, red and blue lights of an ambulance lighting up the alley for a brief moment before it rushes off, and it’s the first moment where Zach really feels like anything exists outside of him and Willy. It jars him, and he leaps back, and suddenly, his feet are working again, and he feels like he needs to get out of there, fast. 

This time, he forces himself to not look Willy in the eye as he says, “I’m leaving now.” 

“Alright,” Willy says. “So long.” 

“See ya,” Zach says, and he’s staring down at his phone, already turning around and walking fast out of the alley, and he expects the air to feel cooler and easier to breathe when he gets out into the open, but it still feels like it’s full of Willy here, too, so he walks and walks and walks until he’s blocks away, wishing he was wearing a sweatshirt so he could pull the hood up. He wants to lock out everything, Willy included, but all he can do is put in his earbuds and scroll through every bit of music he’s got downloaded off of Spotify, trying to find something that will drown out the sounds of the world. 

In the end, he just leaves his earbuds in as no sound comes out of them, because too many songs are about sex or bodies or hearts beating too fast, and those are things that all lead back to Willy, in his mind, so he sits with the sounds of the city and nightlife in the distance as he calls a cab and tries to stop thinking altogether. 

It doesn’t work.


	2. Chapter 2

(Really, Kappy has no business rolling his eyes all put-upon like he currently is when Willy walks into the living room, sighs loudly, and flops onto the couch. They’ve known each other for long enough that Willy being the teeniest, tiniest bit more dramatic than Kappy would be in the exact same situation has no right to surprise anyone. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Willy says, not actually bothering to look at Kappy’s expression. “I’m in the middle of a crisis.” 

“You’re always in the middle of a crisis,” Kappy says dryly. 

“Because I’m a massive fuckup who fucks things up, I know,” Willy says. 

“No, because you make everything into a big deal,” Kappy says, automatic. They’ve had this conversation too many times, probably. 

“Maybe so,” Willy says. 

He’d thought about asking Auston to help him with this, honestly, but he hasn’t texted Auston in weeks, doesn’t know if he’d have to catch him up on all the messy details of the summer so far.

Thankfully, Kappy doesn’t need details. He’s seen the mess firsthand.

“Well, anyway,” Willy says, “I hooked up with Zach.”

There’s a pause, and then: “What?” 

“Zach,” Willy repeats. 

“Like,  _ Zach _ Zach? Zach Hyman?” Kappy says. “Our teammate Zach? You’re talking about that Zach?” 

“The very one,” Willy says. 

“But—” Kappy shakes his head. “You don’t even like each other. You  _ dis _ like each other. It’s literally all you’ve talked about for  _ weeks _ .” 

Willy shrugs. “Yeah, well, these things happen.” 

“No,” Kappy says. “No, these things  _ don’t _ happen. People don’t usually hook up with people they don’t like.” 

“Well, I did,” Willy says. 

Kappy blinks. “Will,” he says slowly, “That’s… kind of a big deal.” 

“Yeah, I know.” 

“And you’re reacting to it the same way you reacted to the grocery store running low on that weird off-brand Nutella shit,” Kappy says. “They weren’t even out. They were just— running low.” 

“First off, fuck you, it’s almond butter,” Willy says. “And, second— how am I supposed to know when you’re gonna take my problems seriously?” 

“Because hooking up with Hyms  _ is _ an actual problem,” Kappy says. “Whole Foods having nut butter in stock is  _ not  _ an actual problem.” 

“What if you have a nut allergy?” 

“That’s not what I— whatever, then you don’t buy it, I don’t know,” Kappy says. “Can we get back to the part where you did your liney?”

“What more is there to say?” Willy says. “It happened.”

“Where? How? Why?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Willy says. “It was such a fucked up idea.” 

“Fucked up execution, too,” Kappy says, wry. 

“Actually, the blowjob itself—” 

“No, stop, it was a joke,” Kappy says, putting his fingers in his ears. “I don’t need to hear about that part.” 

“Suit yourself,” Willy says.)

…… 

Zach isn’t really sure what he expects in the wake of the whole Willy thing. Maybe the ground to open up, or demons to descend on Earth and tell them the end is nigh, or, at the very least, a long voicemail from Mitch Marner chewing him out for what is undeniably the worst mistake Zach has ever made. 

But none of that happens. 

After hooking up with Willy, Zach goes back to his apartment, brushes his teeth three times, falls asleep at night, and wakes up in the morning. He’s got book events, training, various offseason things to attend to, and he just… attends to them. 

The group chat remains the normal level of active. The Marlies go to Texas, and come back, and Zach doesn’t go to any more games, because he’s not quite as bored anymore, and he kind of wants to forget about what happened the last time he went to a Marlies game. 

He is acutely aware of the fact that he hasn’t heard from Willy in the last few days. 

The worst part of it is, he can’t even tell if this is normal or not. He never thought about Willy before things blew up, just took his presence into account when he was there, and didn’t when he wasn’t. A part of him wishes he had, like, comprehensive data on his average level of communication with William Nylander, adjusted for season and relative geographic distance, but the thing is, he can’t even tell which one he’d want. They hooked up, so things have every right to be weird, but if it’s not weird, that— that doesn’t sit right with him either. 

It was a weird thing. Earthshaking, honestly. It’s not the kind of thing anyone can breeze past, not even William Nylander, and it makes Zach angry either way— he doesn’t want things to be weird, but he doesn’t want them to be normal, and worst of all, he doesn’t exactly wish he could go back and undo it, either. 

Zach doesn’t hook up that much, and he never, ever hooks up like  _ that.  _ Zach dates people, brings them flowers, meets their parents and is generally a gentleman, and he’s not sure how often Willy gets his dick sucked in random alleyways, but considering Willy’s apparently got one foot firmly planted in the closet, Zach’s willing to bet it’s not something that happens a ton, at least, not with teammates. 

And it’s not like Zach wants Willy to be… scared, or upset, or whatever. A part of the reason he’s so concerned about not hearing from Willy is because he wants to make sure that he’s not spending his days having panic attacks about Zach revealing something that he may or may not be ready to reveal. He really doubts that’s the case, but still, it’s… a mild concern, at the very least. 

Mostly, Zach just kind of wants to know what Willy’s thinking, period. His own brain is kind of a jumbled mess of things he should feel but doesn’t, and things he shouldn’t feel but does, and underneath everything, he can’t stop thinking about what they’d done, an unwelcome memory that intrudes at the worst of times. Sometimes it pops up when he’s in public, and his face goes bright red, and other times he’ll be in the shower, already half-hard, and then he’ll remember the way Willy’s voice had sounded as he came apart underneath Zach, and his breath will sync up with his memory of Willy’s until he comes, thinking about blonde hair and half-lidded eyes resting lashes on pink cheeks. 

In short, he needs to get the fuck over this. 

It’s been three days of nonstop internal screaming by the time Zach finally hears from Willy. It’s not a tweet or a group message, either, but an actual text, direct from one phone to another. 

_ tonight?  _ is all it says. 

Zach stares at it for about five minutes, and he’s not sure why he’s even surprised that Willy is totally indecipherable. 

_ what about it,  _ he sends back. 

_ what r u doin ?  _

_ making dinner,  _ Zach says, because it’s true. He feels like he should try and come up with something more exciting, but then again, it’s a Wednesday night, and he’s not gonna lie about his plans to make his life sound more interesting than it is, and he’s definitely not gonna lie about his plans to avoid Willy, considering where that landed him last time. 

_ for one?  _ Willy sends back, and Zach is overcome by a very strong urge to throw his phone across the room. 

_ no, i’m making a feast,  _ he types out, but he deletes it, because sarcasm doesn’t translate well over text.  _ yep,  _ is what he sends instead, and then he watches as Willy apparently types and deletes things for the next few minutes, which may or may not drag on for all eternity. 

Finally, Willy sends,  _ make it two,  _ then,  _ i’m coming over.  _

Zach’s heart is beating very loud, and very fast.  _ i didn’t invite you.  _

_ im inviting myself,  _ Willy says. 

_ of course.  _

_ that’s not a no,  _ Willy says, and Zach rolls his eyes, but his face is burning, because it’s not, and that’s kind of the point. 

God, he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. 

_ you’re getting my leftovers.  _

_ honored,  _ Willy says, and it puts a feeling in Zach’s stomach that doesn’t go away for the rest of the day, no matter how hard he tries not to think about Willy. 

Again, it’s nothing new. 

…… 

Zach’s already eaten by the time Willy shows up. 

He isn’t sure how serious Willy had been about expecting food, but he’d made sure to make extra to put in the fridge. He told himself it was meal prep, which was a lie, but a lie he could live with, easier to swallow than most of the weird truths of his life anyway. 

Willy rings the doorbell once, and Zach takes his time answering, but he’s a little annoyed when it rings again as he’s about to put his hand on the doorknob. He’s not sure if it’s on purpose, but he is sure that William Nylander is annoying and impatient, and there’s something weirdly settling about that. A familiar kind of bizarre, instead of the strange buzzing thing that’s been happening under Zach’s skin all goddamn day. 

“I heard you the first time,” Zach says, irritated, but he steps out of the way as Willy barges into his house, rolling his eyes. 

“Hi, I’m good, thanks for having me,” he says, sarcastic. 

“You know, most people don’t invite themselves over to someone else’s place and then expect them to play host,” Zach says. “And take off your shoes.” 

He’s never actually had opinions on people wearing shoes in his house before, but he’s annoyed and in the mood to be bossy, and anyway, Willy does it without question, which brings Zach more satisfaction than he’d care to admit. 

“Are you gonna ask me why I’m here?” Willy says, toeing off his sneakers without even untying them. Zach tries and fails to not judge him for that. 

“Eventually,” Zach says. “I was gonna ask if you wanted water or something, first.” 

“Thought you weren’t playing host, Zachy.” 

“No, you just shouldn’t expect me to,” Zach says. “Also, Zachy? Seriously?” 

“What, does having my dick in your mouth not put us on a nickname basis?” 

Zach’s face goes bright red at that, and he burns with embarrassment that he can’t quite place. “Well,” he says. “Hello to you too.” 

“Hi,” Willy says, and he has the decency to blush a little at that. It’s too dignified a blush, but at least it’s something. “That’s what I wanted to talk about, by the way.”

Zach nods, because he’s not sure what else he’s supposed to do at that. “I’m gonna make some tea.” 

“I hate tea,” Willy says, like Zach had offered, or asked, or— whatever. 

“Well, then you can have something else,” Zach says, turning around to lead them into the kitchen, very aware of Willy’s presence trailing behind him. 

Zach’s pretty sure Willy hasn’t been over to his place, like, ever, but that apparently doesn’t stop him from being comfortable enough there to root through his cabinets.

“Seriously?” Zach says, as Willy pulls a wine glass off a shelf. 

He shrugs. “It’s the first thing I found.” 

“You’re ridiculous,” Zach says as Willy puts the wine glass under the tap. He swirls the contents the same way Zach’s father does. According to him, it’s a thing sommeliers do, to ‘open up the scents’ or something, but Zach just thinks it looks pretentious, and that goes tenfold for Willy. 

“Do you filter your tap water?” Willy asks. 

“Wh— no,” Zach says. “What are you, a professional water taster? What kind of question is that?” 

“Relax, big boy, I can’t taste a difference. Just making conversation,” Willy says. 

Hearing Willy tell him to relax doesn’t actually do all that much to get Zach to relax, but he wills himself to take a deep breath. “I have a Brita pitcher in the fridge.” 

“Do you think it actually makes a difference?” 

Zach shrugs. “I have no clue, I just use it.” 

“I always just thought they kept the water cold,” Willy says. “But I don’t know if you have an ice maker—” 

“We don’t have to make small talk about the water situation in my apartment,” Zach says, cutting him off. “We can just cut to the chase.” 

“I could’ve had a lead in from that,” Willy says. 

“Did you?” 

Willy bobs his head, noncommittal, but his eyes are focused down on the glass in his hand. “I could’ve.” 

“Well, you don’t need to lead in to anything,” Zach says. “What’d you wanna talk about?” 

Willy spins the glass in his hands for a second. “Weren’t you gonna make tea?” 

“Will—” 

“I’ll cut to the chase in a second, just, give me a minute,” Willy says. “Fill your teapot, or whatever.” 

Zach bites his tongue and doesn’t tell Willy that it’s actually called a kettle, because ‘teapot’ isn’t wrong, and also because it doesn’t fucking matter. 

The thing is, Willy’s being weird, with reactions Zach can’t place or account for, and that’s normal, except for how he also looks scared, and a little vulnerable. Willy never, ever looks like this, openly unsure and blatantly deflecting, and it’s throwing Zach off. He wants to be mad, but he feels too sorry for Willy to muster up any anger. 

Not that he feels super sorry for him. Just— sorry enough that he feels obligated to treat the situation delicately. 

He sets the full kettle on its base and leans on the counter across from Willy, who’s found a seat on one of his stools. “So.” 

Willy glances at the kettle. “Doesn’t that go on a stovetop?” 

“This is an electric kettle.” 

“Jeez,” Willy says. “That’s fancy.” 

“Not really,” Zach says. “I think most people have them these days. They’re popular in dorms and shit.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah,” Zach says. “So, uh. Cutting to the chase?” 

Willy gulps. “Right.” 

There are a few drawn-out moments where Zach waits for Willy to say something, but Willy just traces a finger around the rim of his wine glass, the way Zach’s brothers used to in restaurants, after they found out that it could make a noise if you rubbed it the right way. Zach always told them not to, because it drove their parents crazy, and Zach was the oldest and felt compelled to be bossy, like a grown-up. 

He doesn’t tell Willy to stop, even when a high-pitched noise rings out in his kitchen. 

Finally, Willy says, “I’ve had a lot of sex this summer.” 

“Uh,” Zach says. “Congratulations?” 

He’d be annoyed, but it doesn’t even sound like he’s trying to brag, just like he’s stating a fact: the earth is round, the sky is blue, and Willy’s apparently had a lot of sex this summer. 

“I didn’t mean— like, that club, where we— y’know.” 

“Yeah,” Zach says, not sure where this is going.

“I go there a lot,” Willy says. “Because I— whatever. That’s not the point. I pick up a lot, and that’s a new thing for me, and I’ve been starting to get the hang of it, except then I hooked up with you, and that was— it was different.” 

“Different… how?” Zach says, because he knows it was different for him, he’s just not sure what that means, or what it means to Willy. 

“Different, like—” he furrows his brow. “Like, when I hook up with guys, they’re usually all fake-nice, and you weren’t like that at all, and also— you know who I am, so it felt a little less— it felt realer, I guess.” 

“Oh,” Zach says.

“That was a compliment,” Willy says. “Or, like, a thanks.” 

“You’re welcome.” Zach isn’t really sure what he’d expected from this evening, or if he’d had any expectations at all, but this conversation is definitely full of surprising turns. 

“And, like— you don’t like me.” 

“I don’t—” 

“Shut up, you don’t  _ like  _ me,” Willy says. “Even when you’re not pissed at me, you just— you don’t.” 

Hearing it out loud makes Zach feel like kind of an asshole, but then again, if Willy’s actually 100% aware that he’s putting Zach off and continues to do the same things over and over, then maybe he’s kind of an asshole, too. 

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” Zach says. 

“It’s just that— I don’t want you to start liking me, but I like how you’re… honest with me,” Willy says. “No one’s honest with me, especially not the guys I fuck, and I kind of— I want that.” 

“You want what?” 

“Honesty,” Willy says. “And sex. At the same time.” 

Zach knows Willy’s not talking in the abstract, but like fuck is he gonna be the one to say,  _ from me?  _ “Like, in general, or…” 

“No, I mean— you know what I mean.” 

“Not unless you tell me,” Zach says. 

Willy sighs, frustrated, but not really resentful. 

“I liked hooking up with you,” he says. “I want to do it again. If you want to, I mean, but I think you do, so.” 

“What makes you think I do?” Zach says, which is a dumb question, probably, but he wants to hear Willy’s answer anyway. 

“I mean, you’re the one who got on your knees,” Willy says. “I don’t think people take that kind of initiative when they’re not at least a little bit excited about an idea.” 

“I meant the ‘again’ part,” Zach says. 

Willy bites his lip. “I guess— that’s the honesty thing, right?” 

“What do you mean?” Zach asks. 

“You don’t get to tell me the truth that much, either,” Willy says. “I figured you’d appreciate having a chance to.” 

Zach feels unexpectedly exposed at that, because he’s not sure what to make of a world in which William fucking Nylander read him like a book. Willy can’t even be bothered to read a picture book, let alone a whole fucking person, but apparently he has the ability to do that, and only chooses to use it when he’s trying to get under Zach’s skin. 

Suddenly, Zach feels like he’s been underestimating Willy for a while. 

“I don’t hate you,” Zach says. 

“I know,” Willy says. “You just don’t like me, but— I figure we might as well try to get something out of it, right?” 

“Get something out of it,” Zach echoes. 

“Yeah,” Willy says. “Like, sex.” 

“So you’re saying you want to have sex with me,” Zach says. 

“Yep.”

“Because I don’t like you?” 

“More or less,” Willy says. “I mean, it’s not, like a masochism thing. It’s also because I trust you. But, like— I can’t get it off my mind, I guess, and I feel like you can’t either, and it’s probably driving both of us crazy.” 

Zach’s not sure when Willy got so astute, and he’s also not sure when the idea of William Nylander trusting him became something that made his chest feel a little tight. He’s speaking casually, but it’s a last-resort defense mechanism, Zach can tell, because Willy’s cheeks are red, and his eyes are still focused on his glass, like he has to turn this moment into something surreal before it can become something real. 

Which… probably explains a lot about Willy, actually. 

Before Zach can form a response to that, the kettle clicks off. 

He’d forgotten that he’d even put the water up. 

“Hey,” Willy says, and Zach looks up. “Did you happen to boil enough water for two?” 

Zach blinks. “You told me you hated tea.” 

“Yeah,” Willy says, and suddenly, he’s back to being a smug little shit. “I lied.” 

The world immediately feels a lot more normal, and whatever strange affection Zach had been feeling for Willy immediately disappears. 

“You’re rude, you know that?” Zach says, but he pulls out an extra mug anyway. “I don’t understand why you’re always fucking with people.” 

“Keeps ‘em on their toes,” Willy says easily. 

Zach just shakes his head. “You’re getting decaf.” 

“I’m not a kid.” 

“You’re acting like one,” Zach says. “Anyway, I have that Passion stuff they serve at Starbucks that you’re always drinking.” 

“You know my drink?” Willy says, raising his eyebrows. 

Zach rolls his eyes. “It’s bright purple, and I’ve known you for three years.” 

“Didn’t know you were paying attention, is all,” Willy says, and Zach thinks,  _ how could I not? You’re always demanding it.  _

He doesn’t say anything, though, just ignores Willy’s pouting over the fact that he only gets half a mug, until he finally snaps and informs him that if he’d wanted more, he could’ve just asked Zach to put up more water, but he made his bed and now he has to lie in it. 

Willy just smiles at that, and Zach mostly just hates it. 

After that, though, it’s almost pleasant, at least for a few minutes, until Willy hastily puts down his mug and says, “Oh, right, and another thing.” 

“Hm?” Zach says, taking a sip. 

“I want you to fuck me.” 

Zach chokes on his tea. 

“Just, like,” Willy says, powering through as Zach sputters ungracefully, “when I pick up guys, they all expect me to fuck them, and I just— I wanna switch it up.”

“So when you say fuck you—” 

“Up the butt,” Willy says, lifting his hand and pointing a finger upwards like he’s demonstrating, and Zach pretends his face is still red from the choking, and absolutely nothing else. 

“I assumed as much,” Zach said. “There are more delicate ways of talking about these things, you know.” 

“What, like, pitcher and catcher? Plug and outlet? Beauty and the beast?” 

Zach’s not sure why Willy’s talking like he googled ‘gay sex’ for the first time this morning, then disregarded everything he read and started coming up with weird analogies instead, but he refuses to conduct a conversation this way. “You’re saying you want me to top,” Zach says. “‘Beauty and the beast’ doesn’t even make sense.”

“It was too good a turn of phrase to pass up,” Willy says. 

“It’s a  _ children’s _ movie,” Zach says. “And I don’t even know which would be which, and— whatever, this doesn’t matter. You want me to— you want to, uh, bottom.” 

“Yeah,” Willy says. 

Zach feels compelled to ask  _ why,  _ not because he thinks Willy needs a justification—it feels good, even if it’s not really Zach’s thing—but because the fact that Willy’s bringing it up now means that it’s something he’s thought about, something that matters a lot to him, if they’re gonna do this. 

“Did you mean, like, right now?” Zach asks. 

Willy perks up at that. “Oh, yeah, actually—” 

“I wasn’t suggesting it,” Zach says quickly. “Just wondering.” 

“Well, I’m down if you are,” Willy says. 

Zach’s response isn’t an immediate yes, but he doesn’t find himself wanting to say no, either. Like, he’s not exactly in the mood right now, but— 

The offer is pretty appealing. 

He gulps. “I mean, have you ever— y’know. Before?” 

“What, been fucked?” 

“I thought we were talking delicately,” Zach says, and he hates how red his face is, half embarrassed, half turned on. 

“You can be delicate, I’m gonna be direct,” Willy says, and he’s back to twirling the now-empty glass in his hands, ignoring the half-empty mug of tea on the counter. The gesture is starting to piss Zach off, mostly because it’s this confusing combination of obviously nervous and incredibly effective at distracting from his nerves. 

“So you haven’t,” Zach says, before he can really think about it, and Willy’s head shoots up fast.

“I—” he says, and he’s giving Zach this strange, piercing kind of look, eyes wide with bewilderment and intensity. “Not— not really. Not with another person.” 

“But alone, you…” his voice trails off, and his blush turns into something pinker, deeper, more embarrassed, as he starts to picture Willy fingering himself, curious and inexperienced as he jerks himself off. 

“Yeah, with my fingers,” Willy says, and his cheeks are starting to redden too. “And I’ve— like, I fucked guys before. Well, one guy, but I was mostly just— a dick for him to ride, or whatever. He sort of knew what he was doing.” 

“That’s kind of shitty,” Zach says, which might be the understatement of the century, jesus. He doesn’t even like Willy, but he’d want to make sure he was engaged with the process. 

“I didn’t mind it,” Willy says. “It was fine, but I came in, like, two seconds. It was really— tight? And good, but also, just— so much.” 

Zach wants to ask how it compared to his mouth, even though he knows it’s not the same kind of feeling at all. “But you don’t want to do it again?” 

“I just kind of— I want to be full like that, y’know?”

Willy is bright red now, like the level of ease with which he talks about sex is either 0 or 100, and fluctuates between the two at random. Zach, for his part, feels a little bit like he’s gonna fall off the stool he’s sitting on every time Willy looks down at his feet, because Willy is never like this, and it’s more overwhelming to see this side of him than Zach expected. 

It’s all he can do to meet Willy halfway with a choked off, “Jesus christ,” because he could pretend that hearing Willy talk about how he wants to get fucked has no effect on him whatsoever, but that would be a big fucking lie, and honesty is the whole point of this, according to Willy. 

“So you’d wanna?” Willy says, looking up almost hopeful, the same look in his eyes from before, and it’s— it’s  _ Willy,  _ no jokes or weirdness or defense mechanisms for the first time since Zach’s met him, just wide, shiny blue eyes and hair that’s falling in his eyes ungracefully. 

Zach still doesn’t like him, still doesn’t know him, really, but he feels like he’s seeing part of him for the first time, and he has this urge to hug him, to see if he can physically hold him here, like it will somehow keep Willy like this. 

But he knows that, in a second, this Willy will be gone, replaced with the same blonde douchebag who’s been plastered on Zach’s line for three years. 

“Not tonight,” Zach says. “But— we could do other stuff.” He lets the,  _ and save the fucking you for next time,  _ go unsaid. 

“Like… what kind of other stuff?” 

“I dunno,” Zach says. “Whatever you want, I guess?” 

“So, can I— like, can I kiss you?” 

“Of course you can—” Zach says, and he means to finish that sentence, maybe even throw in an eyeroll, but suddenly, Willy is  _ on  _ him, leaping out of his stool and between Zach’s legs, and Zach has to grab for the breakfast bar to keep from toppling over. 

It’s a good kiss, and it’d be hot, maybe, if Zach wasn’t so fucking surprised, but apparently Willy has been thinking about kissing Zach for a few minutes at least, because this isn’t the kind of intensity that comes out of nowhere. It pisses Zach off that he hadn’t seen it coming, but he kind of wonders if that’s on him, if he just hadn’t been paying enough attention to Willy to read him. That’s the whole reason he and Willy don’t work as friends, really. He makes it impossible for Zach to know what he’s gonna do next, if Zach’s helping or hurting him, if he even notices when people try to reach out or if he can’t tell the difference. 

And it’s always been fine, not being able to read Willy, but if they’re gonna do this, Zach’s gonna need to get better at it, and he’s gonna need some clearer signals to work with. 

Right now, though, Willy’s mouth is on his, kissing him hard and kind of desperate as Zach tries to get to his feet, and once his balance is restored, he kisses back just as hard, because he likes seeing Willy like this, likes seeing him want things, likes him being clear about what he wants, likes the fact that what he wants is Zach. 

“I’ve been thinking about this,” Willy says against Zach’s mouth. “How I want to make you come.”

“Willy,” Zach says, and it comes out breathy and barely there. It’s like Willy is racing ahead, dragging Zach carelessly behind him down a trail he can’t even see. He’s not even sure the trail exists, actually, or if it’s just Willy wielding a hypothetical machete and ducking under branches, hoping Zach will follow suit. 

It’s the thing that’s always pissed him off the most about Willy in the past, but right now Zach’s kind of caught up in it, the way the people closest to Willy must always be; it feels like an adventure, too exciting for Zach to think about how dangerous it must be, the reward at the end too appealing for any hazards to truly seem hazardous. 

Actually, if Zach thinks about it more, it’s kind of more like Temple Run, where Willy is set to go full speed ahead, but Zach has to make sure he turns the corners. It’s probably a less exciting metaphor, but an accurate one nonetheless, because Zach feels powerful, feels like Willy’s obnoxiously unbounded energy is his to control, and he thinks that if he plays his cards right, gets Willy going in the right direction and doesn’t let them stumble along the way, he could finally get a chance to figure out who the fuck Willy is underneath all the giggling and good looks and total disregard for what is generally considered polite behavior. 

“Can we go to the bedroom?” Willy asks. “Can I suck your dick?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Zach says, his tone more enthusiastic than the words themselves, but Willy seems to get how on-board he is, and that’s what really matters. 

Willy grabs his hand and leads him down the hall, which makes absolutely no sense. He opens three doors before finally finding Zach’s bedroom, but Zach figures that now he doesn’t have to give Willy a tour of his apartment.

“Hey,” Willy says, as Zach is closing the door to his bedroom behind him. “You’ll tell me if I suck, right?” 

Zach just stares blankly. 

“I mean— not— if it’s not good sucking,” Willy says. “Whatever, you know what I mean.” 

“Sure,” Zach says, grateful his slight bewilderment is coming off as unamused at the maybe-unintentional joke, which, admittedly, is actually pretty funny, now that it’s caught up with Zach. “Is this the first time you’ve—” 

“No, I have,” Willy says. “I just— I don’t know if I’m any good.” 

“There’s a pretty easy tell,” Zach says, a little breathless, and Willy just grunts in disagreement and pulls Zach in for a kiss. 

“It’s like,” Willy says, pulling back, and Zach’s starting to think it’s probably for the best if he stops trying to predict what Willy’s going to do and embraces a mindset of, ‘expect the unexpected’. “People can come from blowjobs that aren’t  _ good.  _ And they don’t always from blowjobs that are good.” 

Which is true, but if Willy understands that, then Zach thinks he should probably understand some other things, like the fact that sucking dick isn’t a skill that translates from person to person, or that what matters most is that everyone has a good time. 

Then again, Zach would think most guys would just be happy to have Willy on his knees, or a guy who looks like Willy on his knees, and might not want to actually bother to make sure it’s anything more than passable, or might not care enough to correct a hot stranger’s technique. 

That’s just a thing that happens with hooking up, and Zach probably can’t blame guys he doesn’t even know for their sex with a stranger etiquette, but it makes his chest kind of ache, because he’s not sure if Willy gets that. He sounds a little worn down, the way he talks about other guys he’s been with, like it hadn’t just been anonymous we-know-the-deal sex, but a slow, steady stream of rejection. 

There’s a reason Zach doesn’t hook up anymore. He knows that feeling, and how it feels like you’re pushing yourself towards something that’s just never as satisfying as you tell yourself it is, and he can understand why it would bring Willy here.  Even if Zach isn’t really something special, he’s someone Willy knows, some nice middle-ground between something anonymous and something like a friend. 

“I’ll let you know,” Zach says. “Um, how do you— where should I go?” 

“Wherever you want, I guess,” Willy says, looking unsure, but he’s still standing close enough to Zach that every little twitch of his eyelids fills Zach’s field of vision with bright blue and long lashes. 

There’s something fidgety about it, and Zach knows that if they stand in mutual indecision, the momentum will die and things will get awkward, fast, and he’s actually pretty turned on from the proximity and the kissing and the anticipation. 

“Bed, then,” he says, tugging Willy by the hands, keeping his grip on his fingers light. 

He kisses Willy when he’s standing at the edge of his bed, because Willy’s eyes are wide and unsure and it seems like the thing to do. They’re about to hook up, and Zach doesn’t want them to be too jittery, and kissing Willy has, at some point, become a very effective way for him to ground himself. There’s nothing that’s too much about things, when they’re just kissing, and Zach doesn’t have to look at him, just gets to feel the way Willy feels against him. All the individual parts of Willy— his arms, his torso, even his hair— those are things Zach can handle. It’s the whole package that shoves him off-kilter, and makes his heart start doing things he can’t really account for. 

But the kissing is nice, and it’s close, and kissing is fun. Sex is fun too, Zach reminds himself, and he knows what sex with Willy is like. He sucked Willy’s dick in an alleyway behind a bar, for christ’s sake, so by comparison, just getting a blowjob from him should be nothing. 

Willy guides them downward, until Zach’s sitting on the edge of the bed, but he doesn’t straddle Zach’s lap the way Zach is expecting to, and instead falls to his knees, resting his hands on Zach’s thighs. His cheeks are a deep shade of pink, and his hands are warm, and he looks up at Zach like he’s asking for permission, or instruction, or something. 

It’s confused, and it’s nervous and turned on and open, and it’s the Willy that Zach wants to hold on to, so without really thinking about it, he reaches forward and tangles a hand in Willy’s hair, a gesture of confirmation that Willy seems to read. He settles in, letting his eyes wander over Zach’s thighs, and Zach feels his dick twitch like Willy’s gaze had brushed it all light and teasing. 

His hands move over Zach’s thighs, like he’s trying to take them all in, and it feels slow and intentional, weird and genuine, and there’s something so sure about the gesture that Zach stops thinking for a second about the how and why of all this, because the questions are kind of answered by the way Willy’s hands are traveling over Zach’s body. 

Willy wants this, Willy wants this a  _ lot,  _ and that’s enough to get Zach’s brain to shut up and let his body take over. 

“You can touch me,” Zach says, and Willy looks up at him for a second before his eyes flicker back down, and he gently runs a thumb over the outline of Zach’s dick. 

It’s a lot, the way Willy’s touching him slow and way too light, and Zach has to keep his hips from bucking up as his dick strains at the fabric of his shorts. 

“That good?” Willy sounds earnest, and Zach feels so fucking proud that he’s still like this. 

“Yeah,” he says, a little breathy. 

“Should I keep going like this, or—” 

“Whatever you want,” Zach says, and he bites back a gasp as Willy touches him again, still too light for it to bring any pleasure but anticipation. 

“I want to make you feel good,” Willy says. “Tell me.”

And Zach would, if he had anything in particular in mind, but he doesn’t. “Do whatever you want,” Zach says. “Just— follow your heart, I don’t know.” 

“Follow your heart,” Willy echoes, his hands going frustratingly still on Zach’s legs. “That’s the weirdest piece of blowjob advice I’ve ever gotten.”

“Oh my god, do what you want,” Zach says. He can hear the facade of humor starting to form again, and he doesn’t want that, doesn’t want Willy to suck him off with a smirk, doesn’t want this to be another thing that makes Zach feel embarrassed and flustered. “I don’t really want to write you a manual.” 

“Why do you assume I’m making fun of you every time I make a joke?” Willy says, as he presses the heel of his hand to Zach’s dick, and that gets Zach feeling a whole host of feelings as he cries out at the sudden pressure. 

“Fuck you,” he gasps out. “I don’t think you’re making fun of me.” 

“You do,” Willy says, as he works Zach’s dick through the fabric of his shorts, and Zach gives up on trying to keep his hips still. “I know you don’t like me, but I’m not always trying to be a dick.” 

“You don’t have to try to be a dick,” Zach says. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know, you’re— thoughtless? Sometimes?” Zach says. “Can we have this conversation another time?” 

“Why not now?” 

“Because your hand is on my dick, asshole,” Zach says, gritting his teeth when Willy squeezes him a little tighter. “If you want to talk, maybe you shouldn’t do that.” 

“But I want to keep doing this,” Willy says, faux-pouty, and he has to be doing it to piss Zach off, he  _ has  _ to be. 

“What is this, some fucked-up interrogation technique?” Zach says, putting his hand over Willy to stop it from moving, because they are right at Zach’s limit and not taking things a step further until Willy takes this seriously. “We can have a real conversation, or we can have sex, but you can’t choose one then switch to the other with no warning. It’s not fucking fair.” 

Willy looks bewildered at that, and Zach’s kind of worried that he’d been too harsh, but then he takes his hand out from under Zach’s and rests it on his knee, moving the other one to his own thigh. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t—” 

“It’s fine,” Zach says, and he regrets saying anything in the first place. Willy looks small and ashamed, and it’s clearly a genuine apology, but not the kind Zach wants. He really doesn’t want Willy to feel bad, just wants him to not laugh Zach off, especially not when he’s got Zach hard. They’re alone in Zach’s bedroom, and it’s intimate and kind of a leap, and it’s enough of a big deal that Zach can’t do this if Willy’s just treating it like another strange and inexplicable thing in his life. 

“Sorry,” Willy repeats. “I— I’m not trying to trick you into a conversation.” 

“The issue isn’t conversation,” Zach says, and honestly, he would prefer the blowjob, but he doesn’t want Willy to do it when he’s all scared, like Zach’s gonna snap at him again at any moment. “It’s just, like, if you’re gonna talk about something serious—” 

“I should probably be more serious, yeah,” Willy says, and he takes his hands off Zach entirely, sinking back onto his heels as he balls his hands into fists on his legs. “It’s just that I’m bad at that. Sounding serious, I mean, not— not  _ being  _ serious.” He bites his lip. “I was just trying to say that I— like, the past few weeks have been weird, but I don’t want you to hate me. I don’t think, anyway.” 

“I don’t hate you,” Zach says. “Again, it’s just— inconsiderate.” It’s not his business to tell Willy how to act, because they’re not friends, and even if they were, this would still hover on the edge of being out of line. 

Willy seems to want to know the answer, though, and there’s a weird knot starting to form in Zach’s stomach. 

“I can work with that,” Willy says, and Zach’s not sure what he’s working towards, but he seems to relax, and a look of resolution replaces the fear on his face. 

It’s a start, maybe. 

“Anyway,” Willy says, and his hands are trailing up Zach’s legs again. “If I promise to focus, I can still suck your dick, yeah?” 

Zach just gapes at him for about half a second, and then, before he can stop it, a wide, incredulous grin splits across his face. “Oh my god, you switch gears so fast.” 

“Sorry,” Willy says, sounding unsure, but Zach just shakes his head and laughs, and sees the corner of Willy’s mouth turn up. It’s a new kind of smile, brighter and more full than the one Zach’s used to seeing on him, and it’s… pretty nice, if Zach’s being honest. 

“You can,” Zach says. “Suck my dick, I mean. If you want to.” 

“I want to,” Willy says cheerfully, and he’s already running his hands up Zach’s legs. “You’re gonna tell me what’s good, right?” 

“Said I would,” Zach says. 

“Okay,” Willy says. “Good, thanks, uh— can I, like, take your shorts off?” 

“Yeah,” Zach says, hastily lifting himself to wriggle them off ungracefully, but Willy helps him take them off with equally clumsy hands. The elastic catches on his dick, still tucked in his boxers, but he quickly shoves those off too, and then his dick is in Willy’s face, and Willy’s just staring at it, his face full of wonder. 

“You’re hard,” he says, sounding weirdly distant. 

Zach gulps. “I mean, yeah.”

“Holy shit,” Willy says, and he’s still staring, like there’s something remarkable about it. Zach’s pretty sure his penis is pretty average, but then again, Willy’s got a different sample, so Zach’s might stick out among the collection. 

“Everything alright?” Zach says, because Willy isn’t touching him, and Zach isn’t in any kind of rush, but he feels a little weird about Willy just staring at him. 

“Your dick is, like, really pretty,” Willy says. “Like— it’s really nice.”

“Thanks,” Zach says, kind of dry, though he can’t be too annoyed about it when Willy sounds so fucking sincere. 

“Also, like, the rest of you,” Willy says, as he wraps a hand around Zach’s dick, using his thumb to spread precome around the head before he starts stroking him, firm and slow. 

Zach gasps. “What about the rest of me?” he manages to say, but the words are barely there, half-formed syllables the most he can manage as the relief and want of finally being touched washes over him. 

“It’s pretty,” Willy says. “You’re, like, really pretty.” 

It’s not true, is the thing, and Zach’s not even trying to be self-deprecating or anything. He’s plenty of things—hard-working, smart, dedicated, and maybe even handsome—but pretty isn’t one of them. He’s got a big nose and a wide smile and it looks nice enough, and he’s, like, muscular, but pretty implies something… eye-catching, maybe, and there’s a difference between the kind of good looking that Zach is, and that. 

Willy is the pretty one, the one with boyband good looks that Zach can never really bring himself to look away from, even when he knows looking will just make him mad. 

“You’re already sucking my dick, you don’t have to sweet talk me,” Zach says, because it’s easier than thinking about why Willy’s compliment is ringing so loud in his head as Willy pulls his shirt over his head. 

“I’m just saying,” Willy says. “Also, I haven’t actually sucked your dick yet.”

“Technically—” Zach starts to say, but then Willy’s got his dick in his mouth, and Zach cuts himself off with a gasp. 

He goes right for it, taking all of Zach at once, and Zach’s not small. It feels like a lot, and when Zach looks down, he sees Willy’s lips stretched around him, looking focused, a furrow in his brow. 

“Holy fuck,” Zach says. “Shit, that’s good.” 

“Should I do it again like that? Slow?” Willy says. 

Zach gets what Willy’s trying to do, ask what feels good and go with it, but honestly, that’s not what Zach needs right now. “Just— do what you want,” Zach says. “Do whatever, seriously.” 

“I can handle it if you wanna— y’know. Show me,” Willy says. 

“What, like—” 

“Fuck my face, I mean,” Willy says, his face going a little bit redder. “Or pull my hair, or— whatever.”

Zach is a little speechless at the offer, and he considers accepting it, but even if Willy could handle it, Zach’s pretty sure  _ he  _ can’t, just, like, emotionally. 

“Maybe another time,” Zach says. “You should— I dunno. Take your time, if you want. Have fun with it.”

“I thought the point of this was me giving a good blowjob.” 

“Yes,” Zach says, and he’s really not sure what Willy’s trying to argue. “And that’ll happen, if you’re enjoying it.” 

“How much does anyone really enjoy a blowjob?” Willy says, and then he leans down to take Zach’s dick in his mouth again, but Zach holds him at bay. 

“Whoa,” Zach says. “If you’re not gonna have fun, we’re not gonna do this.” 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Willy says quickly. 

“Then what did you mean it like?” 

“Just— there’s a dick. In my mouth,” Willy says. “That’s not the best feeling in the world, right?” 

“It’s not just about the physical… sensation,” Zach says, the word feeling awkward and clinical in his mouth. “There’s other stuff.” 

Willy looks at Zach’s face, like he’s thinking.

“What?” Zach says, flushing a little bit, and he’s still hard, because Willy’s still got a hand on his dick and is jerking him off slow and lazy, like he’s already comfortable with this part of it. Maybe he is, considering how much of this blowjob has been devoted to keeping Zach hard while they pause to discuss logistics. 

“I have an idea,” Willy says, shifting slightly to reposition himself so that his mouth is at the tip of Zach’s dick, like he’s going to kiss the head, or something, and it’s so close that Zach could possibly die. 

“What is it?” Zach tries not to sound too impatient, but it’s hard when he’s breathless and verging on desperate. 

“How about,” Willy says, his grip getting a little tighter, “you tell me what you enjoy about sucking dick while I go down on you.” 

“That’s—” Zach’s instinct is to disagree, to tell Willy to just go ahead and do  _ something,  _ to make a choice on his own and figure out what he enjoys without making Zach open up, but then again, this is kind of a choice, and Willy is opening up a little by inviting it, making little suggestions and persevering through rejection. “Yeah.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Zach says. “Here, you should—” 

He doesn’t need to finish the sentence, because Willy’s sucking him off before it ends, and Zach takes a second to revel in the warmth and wetness of Willy’s mouth. 

“You feel really good,” Zach says, his eyes closed. “It’s just easier for me to relax and enjoy it when I know you’re enjoying it too, y’know?” 

“Oh,” Willy says, barely taking his mouth off Zach’s dick to say it before he’s going again. 

“Yeah,” Zach says. “I mean, if you want me to— whatever, but just because you can do something, like, physically, doesn’t mean you should, y’know?” 

Willy hums around his dick, and Zach decides it’s best to limit the conversation to either yes/no questions, or rhetorical ones. 

“I could,” Zach finds himself saying, even though that’s not something he’s ever thought about all that much. “If you want, but it’s fun for me if you just—” He pauses, trying to figure out how to say the thing he wants to say without using any words that will get him chirped, but he figures Willy probably can’t laugh at him if his mouth is too busy sucking Zach’s dick. “If you savor it. Play around a little, get creative, see what gets the reaction you want, or— if you wanna tease, that’s fun, sometimes.” 

“You mean,” Willy says, and then he runs his tongue up the length of Zach’s dick, like something straight out of porn. “Like that?” 

“Fuck,” Zach says, too caught up and turned on for there to be anything but the one breathy, half-choked syllable. 

“Yeah, like that,” Willy says, and he’s probably grinning, but Zach isn’t annoyed by it, doesn’t even fucking  _ care,  _ because it all feels so good right now. 

“Fuck,” Zach repeats, probably sounding dumb and desperate and shameless, and he’d never thought he’d be able to feel like this in front of Willy and not be angry about it, but it’s almost the opposite, like the relief of finally being able to let go in front of him is overwhelming. 

Willy goes back to sucking Zach’s dick, but it’s slow and taunting and firm, and it gets Zach squirming, writhing on the bed from the battling desire to get  _ more  _ and to not accidentally choke Willy or something. He knows Willy notices, but the struggle is kind of the fun part, and he’s not talking the way he said he would, but he can barely form words like this, and if the way Willy sets the pace achingly slow at his own leisure is any indication, he’s gotten the hang of enjoying this. 

“Fuck, you’re so hard,” Willy says. 

“It’s your fault.” 

“Fuck,” Willy says, this time in a low whisper that makes tears form at the corners of Zach’s eyes for reasons he can’t really explain. “Will you come if I keep going slow?” 

The answer is  _ no,  _ but Zach doesn’t want to say that. “Dunno.” 

“Are you close?” 

“I—” Zach cuts himself off as Willy tightens his mouth around Zach’s dick. “Feels good.” 

“But will it make you come,” Willy says, insistent, and Zach relents. 

“Probably not,” he says. “Unless you speed up.” 

“Do you want me to speed up?” 

Zach doesn’t know what he wants, and he doesn’t really want to think about it. “Don’t have to come yet.” 

“What if I told you I want you to come?” Willy says, and he’s just using his hand now, jerking Zach off at a slightly faster pace. “Would you want to?” 

“Yes,” Zach says, because he’d do anything Willy wanted right now. “Only if you want.” 

“I want,” Willy says, low and fierce. “I want to make you come.” 

“Fuck, Will,” Zach says, squeezing his eyes shut as Willy speeds up even more, and he knows he’s not gonna last long now. “Just like that, yeah.” 

“Do you wanna come in my mouth, or on my face?” Willy asks. 

“I don’t— either. Whatever,” Zach says, because he just wants to come. 

“Sure you have no opinion?” 

Willy really needs to work on the timing of these questions. “Both sound good.” 

“I want to swallow your come,” Willy says. 

_ God,  _ it’s— 

“But I think I want you to come on my face more.” 

And that sends Zach over the edge, without even getting a chance to warn Willy, just a sharp inhale that may or may not sound like “Gonna—” that gets swallowed in a strangled noise that comes right from his chest. 

His toes curl and his head tips back as he comes, and it’s fucking intense, how hard he comes, white stripes landing on Willy’s face. Zach can’t really stand to look, because he’s embarrassed and also thinks that if he sees Willy covered in his come he might legitimately, actually explode, but he can see bits in his periphery, dripping down his chin, splattered on his collarbone, probably dripping off his eyelids— 

It’s too much, and Zach can’t look, but he also kind of has to. 

It’s every bit as overwhelming as he expects. 

Thankfully, he can play come-dumb for now, so he just gapes and stays in this weird, heavy kind of blissful place. Willy’s looking up at him like something out of a dream and looking nothing at all like himself, and Zach wants to bask in the way his eyes are shining, like they’re the sun piercing through a too-cool breeze. Neither of them makes any move to wipe off Willy’s face, and Zach almost wants to take a picture, except he knows that it would be a weird thing to ask. Anyway, if Zach had a picture of this, he’d probably want to make it his phone wallpaper, and also his computer wallpaper, and he’d maybe want to blow it up, frame it, and hang it above his bed, and none of those things are an option. 

He can commit it to memory, though, so he tucks the image away, knowing, as he does, that it’s going to be something he revisits often. 

“So,” Willy says, “How was that?” 

His voice is kind of hoarse. His voice is kind of hoarse from Zach, because he just had Zach’s dick in his mouth and spent about a million years getting Zach hard and keeping him on edge. 

“Good,” Zach says, kind of dazed. “Really, really good.” 

Willy lights up, and he looks damn near angelic, which is not the way normal people look when their faces are covered in come, Zach’s pretty sure. “Really?” 

“Holy fuck,” Zach says, and he would laugh incredulously if he could muster it. 

He lies back on his elbows, breathing for a bit, and he’s just openly staring at Willy, covered in his come and totally still. It’s a comfortable kind of silence, like they’re not quite done with each other, and they’re just not awkwardly lingering here because they don’t know what to do next. Or, not yet, anyway. Maybe it’ll turn into that in a few minutes, but for right now— 

It’s just. Really, really nice. 

“Holy fuck,” Zach says again, and then he sits up a little as the world starts to slow back down to a normal speed. “I can’t believe you called me pretty.” 

Willy flushes. ”Shut up.” 

“No, it’s not— it’s not a bad thing,” Zach says quickly, but the moment is over, and Willy’s already standing up and grabbing the tissues off of Zach’s nightstand. “I would’ve gotten those for you.” 

“S’okay,” Willy says, making a face at the stickiness as he wipes down his cheeks. “Do you have, like, cleanser?” 

“Bathroom,” Zach says, and Willy wordlessly turns around and walks into the hallway. 

After a second’s hesitation, Zach yanks on his boxers and follows him to the bathroom, standing in the open doorway, a little awkward. 

“Yeah?” Willy says, hunched over the sink. He’s still shirtless, and Zach can’t tell if he’s hard in his jeans, or if his zipper is just tenting because that’s what zippers do. 

He looks unfairly good. 

“I wasn’t trying to make fun of you for calling me pretty,” Zach says. “I’ve just never been called that before.” 

“It was just a thing I said, don’t read too much into it,” Willy says. It’s disinterested Willy, which is a Willy that Zach is very familiar with; it usually comes out when he’s trying to not be jealous or angry or hurt, so instead of just feeling things, he shuts down. It’s one of the most frustrating version of Willy there is, in Zach’s opinion. 

He tries to be patient. “I’m not, just— I didn’t want to be rude just because I’m shit at taking compliments.” 

Willy turns off the water and towels off his face, like he’s just going through his skincare routine and not washing Zach’s come off his face. Zach’s fairly sure that Willy’s actual skincare routine is a bit more elaborate than the Cetaphil Zach keeps around his bathroom, but the effect is the same. 

“You’re great at taking compliments,” Willy says, rolling his eyes. “You’re just shit at taking compliments from me.” 

“Only when I don’t know if they’re real or not,” Zach says, and now he’s starting to get angry again, in the same familiar way that he hates.

“I don’t give out fake compliments, Zachy,” Willy says cooly, and Zach cringes at the nickname. 

“Yes you do,” Zach says. “But— that’s not the point.” 

“Then what is?” Willy pushes past Zach to make his way back to the bedroom, every bit as frustratingly dramatic as he usually is, and it feels like steps backwards, Willy as unreadable as ever.

Zach would usually give up, at this point, but he figures that he can at least try to channel his stubbornness into patience, considering that Willy just gave him one of the most intense orgasms of his life.

“You’re the pretty one,” Zach says, and he turns bright red as he does. “I mean, I’m sure it’s a word people use for you a lot, but— I’m not used to it. That’s all. It was a nice thing to say, though, I— thanks.” 

Willy pauses, his t-shirt in his hand and his back to Zach. A part of him wants Willy to turn around, but he knows that he wouldn’t really be able to get much from Willy’s face anyway. 

“Right,” Willy ways, yanking his shirt over his head. “Right, yeah, of course, I— sorry for freaking out.” 

“It’s okay,” Zach says, trying to not sound patronizing, because that doesn’t usually help these situations. “Probably could’ve phrased it better.” 

The thing is, even if he doesn’t know where he went wrong exactly, he knows that he and Willy just had sex, and that can leave people vulnerable, exposed, on-edge. He and Willy might not be close, but Zach’s known him long enough to know that Willy is awful at being vulnerable. He’d pushed himself to be open, for Zach, and even if they’re not friends, that’s not  _ nothing.  _

Maybe Zach doesn’t like Willy, but he doesn’t want him to leave this feeling weird and shaken up and upset. No one deserves that. 

“You could have,” Willy says neutrally, and then he gulps. “I, uh— this was fun.” 

“It was,” Zach says. “Uh. Really good.” 

“I’d be down to go again, sometime,” Willy says. “If you would be.” 

“I would be,” Zach says. “I mean, I am.” 

“Cool,” Willy says. 

Zach gulps, not sure why his hands are sweating. “Cool.” 

Willy’s face is red, and Zach’s feeling kind of hot, all of a sudden, and the tension in the air is some strange combination of arousal and awkwardness. 

“I’m just gonna—” Willy says, and then he takes a small step backwards, and Zach assumes that means he’s gonna go, but then he stops short, stumbles a little, then lunges forward to press his mouth against Zach’s, quick and fierce and short. 

He hasn’t brushed his teeth, and he still looks kind of like a mess, but Zach tangles his hands in Willy’s hair and licks into his mouth, because if he’s gonna be gross, he might as well commit to it. 

“That was the hottest blowjob I’ve ever given,” Willy says against Zach’s mouth. “Holy fuck, thank you.” 

“You did all the work,” Zach says, and then leans in and kisses Willy again. There’s a slight chance he’s becoming addicted to Willy’s mouth, but he figures he can deal with that when it becomes a problem. 

“Team effort,” Willy says, and then he pulls away. “Um, I should probably go, but— didn’t wanna leave without thanking you, I guess.” 

“Yeah, well, no problem,” Zach says. “I’ll see you—” 

“Around, yeah,” Willy says. 

“Sweet,” Zach says. “We’ll… text, or something.” 

“We’ll keep in touch,” Willy says. 

“I’ll have your people call my people.” 

“I’ll have my people call back,” Willy says, and then he gives Zach an awkward smile. 

They keep up a steady stream of conversation, and it’s more pleasant than awkward, if only by a small amount. Willy slips his shoes on, and as he’s about to open the door, he gives Zach one last look, like he’s thinking about kissing him. 

Zach thinks he would kiss him back, but in the end, Willy does nothing, just gives Zach a wave, runs a hand through his hair, and makes his way down the hallway. 


	3. Chapter 3

Zach doesn’t hear from Willy for the next 36 hours, and he’s trying not to freak out about it when he realizes that he could just, like, text Willy himself, because he has Willy’s number, and also, the ball is in his court. The last time things went down, Willy had texted first. It’s not that Zach’s not worried about coming across as desperate, but he’s pretty sure that’s not a risk he’s running with this. 

And, also, he’s… 

Well. A little desperate. 

Enough that he’s all jittery the next morning on the way to the gym, which is weird, because usually he’s calm after he’s gotten laid. This doesn’t feel like he’s gotten anything out of his system, though; he’s all nerves and anticipation and worry, and he hates it, and that’s maybe the reason he takes a while to debate the pros and cons before finally deciding to just fucking text him. 

_ hey whats up,  _ he sends off, only letting himself overthink it a little. 

_ did u type whats instead of what’s just to sound casual,  _ Willy sends back. 

_ no,  _ Zach lies. 

_ i don’t believe you :),  _ Willy responds.  _ so is this a booty call or?  _

_ sure, if you’re around?  _

_ i can swing by yours tonight ;) ;) ;),  _ Willy replies, and honestly, Zach shouldn’t be surprised that WIlliam Nylander is unironically using winky faces, but it still makes him want to throw his phone across the room. 

_ k cool,  _ Zach says, and he isn’t expecting a response, so he’s not sure why he’s disappointed when one doesn’t come. 

Willy stops by late in the evening. Zach knows they didn’t set a time, but he can’t help but think that when you say ‘I’m coming over tonight’ and show up at 10, it should count as a strike against you in the punctuality category. He doesn’t say it out loud, but he probably doesn’t have to. 

“Shoes off, still?” Willy says, and Zach nods, vaguely wondering if he’s gonna have to make this into an actual rule now. Maybe it’s for the best; he’s a real and functional adult, but that doesn’t mean he enjoys it, so it might be nice to keep his floor clean instead of sweeping six times a day. 

Willy looks nervous, and jittery, and not at all like a guy who’d sent Zach winky faces earlier. It makes Zach frown, because he’s not sure why Willy is scared now when he’s been nothing but breezy about it for days. 

“What’s with you?” Zach says, because, while it’s fun watching Willy go from smug to flustered, it’s less fun watching him go from pretending to be okay to getting worse at pretending to be okay. 

“Nothing,” Willy says. “You texted, I’m here.” 

“You look like you want to book it out the door,” Zach says. 

“I don’t,” Willy says quickly. “Come on, let’s get to business.” 

“Wh—” Zach starts, but he’s cut off with a very surprising, very insistent kiss from Willy. 

It’s not hot, is the thing. It’s fast, and it’s clearly trying to be, like, surprising-sexy, but honestly, it feels like Willy begging him not to ask, to play along and let Willy be some level of not-okay and take this in return. 

It feels bad, really bad, and Zach’s not in this to do things neither of them want to do. 

“Whoa, hey,” he says, pulling away. “Slow down.” 

“My shoes are off,” Willy says. 

“Wh— this isn’t about shoes,” Zach says. “What’s up?” 

“Nothing,” Willy says. “There’s nothing up. I’m here to have sex, let’s have sex, right?” 

“I don’t want to have sex if—” 

“If you don’t want to have sex, you could’ve told me that before I drove all the way over here,” Willy snaps, shoving his feet into his shoes again, and it’s the kind of mood whiplash that sets bells off in Zach’s head, like when he was in college and had a random fight with his then-girlfriend over coffee and a few poorly-phrased sentences that was really about finals week, and the fact that both of them hadn’t been great about answering their phones for a few days.

“Can I just finish a sentence?” Zach says. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to, just— wanted to slow down for a second. Talk, maybe.” 

“I’m not here to talk,” Willy says. “That’s not what we do.”

“Uh, no, I talk to the people I’m gonna have sex with,” Zach says. “It’s cool if something’s wrong, and you don’t have to tell me, but— we’re teammates, y’know? It’s not like I’m a stranger.” 

“It’s not like you’re a friend, either,” Willy says. 

Zach ignores that. “I’m just saying, we know each other, and I don’t wanna— if you’re feeling bad, I don’t want to make you feel worse.” 

“I don’t feel bad,” Willy says. “Or— I don’t have a reason to feel— I don’t fucking know, okay? I should just go.”

“You don’t have to go,” Zach says. “And you don’t have to have a reason to feel something.” 

“I’m just nervous, it’s dumb, it’ll go away in a sec,” Willy says. 

“I mean, I wouldn’t say that’s dumb, but okay,” Zach says. “It’s fine if you’re nervous.”

“I know,” Willy snaps. “Can we just— can we make out, or something?”

He sounds irritated, which is less than ideal, but better than so anxious he’s shaking, and they’re officially at the point where Zach’s probably bordering on pushing too far. “You’re gonna have to take your shoes off again.” 

“You’re such a dickhead,” Willy says, but he sounds a little more amused, if not quite fond. Zach will take it, though. 

As it turns out, making out does wonders to calm Willy down, and it feels a little more like they’re on the same page when Zach leans in and kisses him, a little gentle, but with no intention of coming up for air any time soon. 

They’re definitely making out instead of talking, but Zach’s pretty sure this is a healthy version of that. If they were dating, or even friends, this would be another story, but as it stands, this is the extent of their relationship— not really liking each other, but not wanting to hurt each other, and that means kissing as a means of communication is perfectly acceptable. 

It’s just— Zach’s pretty sure Willy’s got some shit to work out, like, with himself, and if Zach’s gonna have a part in that, he’d like to know. Willy keeps dropping these random snippets of sexual history that don’t form a coherent picture in Zach’s head, and Zach’s starting to think Willy’s got less of an idea of what he’s into than he’s been hinting at.

Which is fine, but, like, if Zach’s gonna be having sex with him, it seems like relevant information for him to have. 

But then they’re on the couch, and Willy’s straddling Zach, and Zach finds that he has a hard time worrying when Willy’s hard in his shorts and has his hand on Zach’s dick. 

Willy, for his part, seems totally relaxed. This is something he’s comfortable with, apparently, jerking someone off with minimal clothing removal. Zach doesn’t wanna push things further, because he’s not quite sure what’s going on with Willy tonight, but he doesn’t want to come in his shorts, so when he feels the first hint of curling in his toes, he grabs Willy’s wrist. 

“Do you wanna—” Willy’s eyes shoot up to meet his, and Zach forgets what he was saying for a second, because they really are very, very blue. “Uh, we should go to the bedroom.”

“Oh,” Willy says, looking kind of flustered. “Yeah, sure, yeah.” 

Zach nods awkwardly, and Willy dismounts, and as they make their way to the bedroom, he’s a little nervous that things are gonna get awkward-weird-jittery again, but thankfully, Willy strips off his shirt and tosses it on Zach’s floor as he walks in, then turns around and kisses him, tugging on the hem of his t-shirt, urging him to do the same. 

“Did you want me to keep going?” Willy says, palming at Zach’s dick through his shorts. He’s farther from the edge than he’d been a few moments ago, but he’s still pretty hard, and he’s not super desperate to come, but he doesn’t want to stop and doesn’t have anything else in particular in mind, and he’s still got the strange nervous energy from before. 

“Yeah,” he says, figuring an orgasm will help take the edge off. 

They end up with Willy sitting on the edge of the bed, with Zach naked in front of him, and he tries to not watch Willy watch him react to the way he’s touching him, but it’s difficult. When it had been Willy’s mouth on his dick, he’d had his eyes closed, but with this, Willy’s got a full view of Zach’s naked body and his dick in his hand, and it leaves him feeling more exposed, more conscious of every noise and breath and face. 

But then Willy starts running the hand that’s not currently jacking Zach off over his legs and stomach and back, and Zach finds it easier to stop paying attention to all those things. 

The touch is grounding, is the thing, gentle and exploratory and connected. It’s also just a nice feeling, like if Willy’s running his fingers over the muscle and skin of Zach’s back, he’s not judging Zach’s body, just— learning it, almost, maybe appreciating it. 

It’s the most admiration Zach’s felt in a while, and it’s not quite what he’s used to from hookup-sex, but it’s also— it’s one of his favorite parts of sex in a relationship, really, learning to be a little more vulnerable. 

This isn’t a relationship, isn’t anything close and probably won’t ever be, but Zach thinks that they could maybe— he’s not really sure. Share that part of it, maybe. Have that together. 

When he comes, Willy squeezes the top of the back of Zach’s thigh, just under his ass, and suddenly, Zach knows what he wants to do. 

He waits until he’s done wiping come off his stomach to ask. “Can I eat you out?” 

“What?” Willy says, sitting straight up and dropping his phone on the ground, like he hadn’t expected Zach to say anything. “You— are we still going?” 

Zach feels his face go hot. He hadn’t even considered the fact that Willy might’ve figured they were done; the thought of ending this honestly hadn’t occurred to him. “If you want,” he says, and then he adds, “I want to, I mean,” just to be clear.

Willy stares at him like he’s grown an extra head. “I mean, I want, but… what do you mean?”

“What do I mean by what?” 

“By, like— by eating me out, do you mean—” He turns bright red, and does a few aborted gestures. Zach figures they’re on the same page, but his mind flashes back to  _ you be delicate, I’ll be direct,  _ and wonders what changed, if it’s the act itself or the fact that Zach’s the one who started the evening with a game plan. 

“Rimming,” Zach says, even though the word feels awkward in his mouth. “Just— you said you want me to— I mean, stuff back there is probably fun for you, right?” 

“Is it fun for you?” Willy sounds genuinely bewildered. 

“I mean,” Zach says. “Yes?” 

“But— like, your mouth would be—”

“If it’s weird for you, I don’t have to,” Zach says. “We can do something else, or just— chill. Whatever.”

“No, I mean, that’s— yeah. Yes. Do it.” 

“You sure?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Willy nods quickly, scrambling to rearrange himself on the bed. “How should I— like, um, on my stomach?” 

“Maybe hands and knees?” Zach suggests. His face is probably inventing new colors just so he can blush even deeper.

Willy gets there fast, then seems to remember that he’s still wearing pants, and his hands are shaking as he undoes his belt. Zach can’t tell if he’s nervous or excited, but from the looks Willy keeps shooting him, chewing on his lip like he’s trying to stop himself from saying something, he’d guess it’s the latter. 

“This good?” 

It shouldn’t be a  _ thing  _ for Zach, the way Willy’s voice is breathy and nervous and he’s vibrating all over so hard that he can barely hold himself up. He doesn’t want Willy to be scared, because he’s not that fucked up, but he just— he wants to soothe him, calm him down, make him feel good, because he’s pretty sure half the reason Willy’s so antsy is because he really does want this and can’t tell if he’s ready. 

Zach doesn’t want to let him push himself too far, but he’s not sure what he can do beyond make him feel safe like this, so he takes a breath and puts his hands on Willy’s hips, then runs them up and down the sides of his torso. 

“You good?” he asks, because he has to check in when Willy looks this shaken. This had been Zach’s idea, but Willy seems embarrassed and excited and ashamed all at once, like he’s about to live out some filthy fantasy that he never thought would come true. Zach wonders if Willy knows that Zach’s in this too, that he’d offered to put his mouth there because he knows it’ll make Willy feel good, and he kind of likes how it feels a little gross to talk about, and the intimacy that comes with that.

He doesn’t say any of that, though.

“Please touch me,” Willy says. His voice is thin and a little desperate, and Zach can feel traces of precome on Willy’s stomach when he lets his hands wander there, and— god, Zach wants to, he really does, but ‘please touch me’ isn’t the same as ‘yes.’ Right now, Zach needs a yes.

“Have you ever done this before?” Zach says, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to the back of Willy’s neck. 

“No,” Willy says, which is what Zach had expected, because of everything Willy’s told him and everything he’s doing right now. 

“Has anyone ever—” Zach kisses Willy between the shoulderblades, then slides a hand down until the tip of his finger is gently grazing Willy’s rim. “Touched you here?” 

“No one else, no,” Willy says, but it’s lost a little bit in a gasp. “Fuck, come  _ on.” _

The else in ‘no one else’ leaves Zach a little overwhelmed by the image of Willy fingering himself, but he rests his finger over Willy’s hole as he plants a trail of kisses down his back. He doesn’t have any lube on it or anything, so he doesn’t slip the finger in, just lets it stay there, urging Willy to relax. 

When Zach’s tongue first touches Willy’s hole, he cries out, and it’s a noise that Zach knows then and there will stay with him for the rest of his life. He wishes he could see Willy’s face, but for now, all he can do is guess based on the way Willy throws his head back, his hair looking even longer than its usual offseason grown-out as it brushes the tops of his shoulders. 

“Fuck fuck  _ fuck,”  _ Willy says. 

“That good?” 

“Please do that again,” Willy says. “Oh my god, Zach,  _ fuck.” _

Zach’s only done this a few times, and it’s always been with people he was dating. He’s certainly never asked to do it before, and he’s not really sure why— it’s not like he’s embarrassed about the fact that he enjoys it, but it’s also not something he’s exactly dying to advertise. He’s got a reputation for being a nice guy, steady and dependable and meet-the-parents-level committed, and not that you can’t be boyfriend material and also enjoy eating ass, but those two things don’t usually go hand in hand, in Zach’s mind. It’s something that comes up when you’re trying to spice things up, already comfortable enough that adding new layers of intimacy is a struggle. 

It’s bizarre and wonderful, getting to do this with Willy. Zach’s kind of obsessed with his reactions. He’s so vocal, and so obviously overwhelmed, and Zach can’t help but go slow to draw out more whines. It’s the greatest sound Zach’s ever heard, and a part of him wishes he could be looking at Willy’s face right now, but he also thinks it’d be too much to have to look in Willy’s eyes while he’s taking him apart. 

Willy seems to purposely hold off on touching himself, like he’s trying to see how long he can last before it gets to be too much, but he gives in eventually. Zach can see him jerking himself off, hard and furious and fucking desperate, and when he comes, it’s loud, this out-of-control noise that Zach knows he won’t forget any time soon. 

He’s still got his tongue on Willy’s hole, but he’s not moving, doesn’t want to push him past the point of comfort, and Willy’s just on his hands and knees in Zach’s bed, trying to catch his breath. 

“Holy fuck,” Willy says, squirming a little at the loss of contact when Zach moves away. 

“Yeah,” Zach says, and he suddenly really,  _ really  _ wants Willy to turn around.

Instead, he leans forward and stuffs his face in Zach’s duvet. “You just did that.” 

Zach feels his face heat up. “Yeah,” he repeats. 

“Was that—” Willy turns his head to the side, but still isn’t looking at Zach. It’s probably a yoga pose, actually, but Zach doesn’t do yoga enough to know what it’s called off the top of his head. “Sorry I just sort of— went for it.” 

“Oh.” Zach shrugs. “I mean, you don’t have to— it’s not like you need my permission.” 

“Guess not,” Willy says, and Zach spends a brief second wondering if Willy could be into the kind of sex where he would need permission to come, but then he remembers that he needs to do things like live and breathe, so he tucks that thought far, far away. He’ll revisit it if they get there. 

“So,” Zach says, clearing his throat. “Was that, uh— was it good?” 

“Fucking  _ duh,” _ Willy says. 

“Just asking,” Zach says. “Just because you came, doesn’t mean—” 

“Can we please debrief later?” Willy says, sounding out of breath and a little tired. “I think the ass eating postmortem can wait.” 

“Weird time to break out the word postmortem,” Zach mumbles, a little absently. Most of his focus is on the side of Willy’s head, like if he stares at it hard enough Willy will let him see his face. 

“I think it’s more of a phrase,” Willy says, and then he climbs off the bed, his back still to Zach, and Zach feels weirdly frozen in place. 

He doesn’t think he’s making it up, that Willy’s purposely avoiding looking Zach in the eye. Maybe because this is how Willy is dealing with the overwhelming intimacy of knowing where Zach’s tongue had just been, by pretending it isn’t a big deal and not letting Zach see the blush that’s got to be on his cheeks right now. 

It’s just— Zach needs to  _ see _ it, to know that he’s not alone in feeling like this was a big step. He’s thinking about Willy asking him to fuck him, wondering if he feels differently about that now that this happened. It drives him crazy, not knowing how Willy’s changed now that Zach’s touched him somewhere no one else has, and it feels bad, because even if they’re not exactly here to make sweet, sweet love, Zach kind of wants to make sure he’s okay. Willy’s been so head-first about everything, way too eager to act like everything’s fine, or like he knows what he’s doing and how he’s feeling at all times. It’s bullshit, obviously, because no one is that easygoing, and Willy has a tendency to alternate between breezy confidence and fumbling insecurity from second to second. 

In an ideal world, Zach would just tell Willy to cut the crap and be honest with him, but they’re not there, not yet, at least. It’s a work in progress, and Zach’s learning that patience, when exercised carefully, can really pay off when dealing with William Nylander. 

“Why are you getting dressed?” Zach asks as Willy pulls his boxers on. 

“We’re done,” Willy says. “No point in being naked.” 

“Are you just gonna go?” Zach says. 

Willy freezes a little, turns to look over his shoulder, and Zach gets a glimpse of Willy’s profile, sees redness high on his cheek that goes all the way down his neck. 

“I mean,” he says, “did you want me to stay?” 

The answer is yes, because Zach doesn’t want him to go right now, not when things are tense and a little fragile. He can’t really say that, though, because it’s not so much about wanting Willy to stick around as it is about not wanting him to leave. Zach’s not sure what they’d do, if Willy hung out for a bit, because they’ve never really hung out. They could maybe cuddle, but Zach wants something to do with his hands, not awkward, stilted attempts at pillow talk. His arm would probably fall asleep if he tried to spoon Willy, anyway. 

“I was gonna offer to make coffee, or something,” Zach says. 

Willy bends forward to pick up his shorts. “It’s kinda late for coffee.” 

“Decaf,” Zach says. “Or maybe a snack, I dunno.” 

“Oh,” Willy says, and then, after a beat, “Alright, then.” 

Zach waits for Willy to say more, but he doesn’t. “So you want something?” 

“Tea sounds nice,” Willy says, and after a second’s hesitation, he looks over his shoulder; his expression is guarded and a little unsure, but he’s not scared, and Zach lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, unexpected relief pooling into his chest and making him feel calmer already. 

“I have that Passion stuff,” Zach says. 

“I know,” Willy says, and gives him a nervous smile that looks weird on his face. “I had it last time.” 

“Right,” Zach says, blushing, and this is usually the part where he’d be annoyed at Willy, but Willy also seems vaguely out of sorts right now. Neither of them is really sure what to do, probably. 

“I’m gonna go wash up,” Willy says, and once he’s out of the bedroom, Zach takes a second to just breathe deeply a few times, because he’s feeling— not bad, exactly, but also not quite comfortable, and also a little freaked out by how not-bad this feeling is. 

He doesn’t let himself worry about it for too long, though. 

The kettle’s already on when Willy steps out into the living room area, wearing clothing he must have ducked back into Zach’s room to retrieve. Zach’s in sweatpants and a t-shirt, but he still feels less dressed than Willy, probably because he’s more or less wearing pajamas, and Willy’s back in the outfit he’d worn over here. A part of Zach feels disappointed, like he’d wanted Willy to linger a little more and not look halfway out the door, but it’s late, and if Willy’s not planning to stay the night—which Zach hadn’t offered, but wouldn’t be opposed to, if Willy asked—he’s probably gonna be heading out soon. 

Willy doesn’t say much as he walks into the kitchen, but he does come to stand next to Zach, leaning gently against the counter and giving him a small nod. The blush on his cheek has subsided, but he’s still a little pink, and Zach has the strangest urge to just reach out and grab his hand, rub his thumb over the knuckles and tell him it’s alright, but that’s not something he thinks he can do, right now, not when they’re both fully dressed in his kitchen. That’s an intimacy that’s reserved for certain spaces, and this isn’t one of them. 

Still, Zach’s not used to Willy being quiet, so he busies himself with getting mugs out of the cabinet, and when he’s reaching for the tea bags, Willy finally decides to speak. 

“So, this is what it’s like to be a person who’s lost their ass-eating virginity.” 

Which is… a thing, for sure. 

Zach fumbles the box a little, but doesn’t drop anything or hit his head, so it’s not as bad as it could be. He’s kind of thankful Willy had chosen to drop that phrase when the object in Zach’s hand was a cardboard box, and not ceramic or boiling water. 

“Do you ever think about the words that come out of your mouth?” Zach says. 

“Always,” Willy says, his voice cheerful despite the fact that his eyes are still fixed on the floor. “I usually just go ahead and say them anyway.” 

“Makes sense,” Zach says, wry, tearing open the tea bags and putting one in each mug. 

“You seemed like you wanted to talk about it before,” Willy says. “I figured I’d give you an in.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were cool with it,” Zach says. 

“I said I was,” Willy says, even though he hadn’t really been very convincing. “Just because I haven’t done this stuff, doesn’t mean I’m scared, or something.” 

“I’m not saying you are,” Zach says, a little defensive. “I was checking in, is all.” 

“I can handle myself, dude,” Willy says. 

Zach is starting to think that this whole conversation was a dumb idea. “No shit,” he says. “I was just asking to make sure.”

“Because it’s nice?” Willy says, and there’s an edge of almost-bitterness to the last word. Zach can hear the unspoken accusation in it, hears a fight brewing that he doesn’t want to have. 

“Because I kind of care about the people I have sex with,” Zach says. “And I wanted to ask. You don’t have to answer.” 

Willy’s frowning a little now, but there’s something soft around the edges, like he’s trying to decide whether this is an argument or a conversation. 

Apparently, he decides on the latter. “It was good,” he says, then bites his lip. “Really. Intense, but— good.”

“So it was good intense,” Zach says. 

Willy nods. “It’s—” He cuts himself off, opens and closes his mouth a few times, like he’s really choosing his words carefully. Finally, he says, “It’s weird doing things for the first time.” 

“I feel that,” Zach says. 

Willy glances up at him. “I mean, it’s not— you’ve done this stuff before, right? The sex stuff?” 

“Well, yeah, but—” Zach’s not really sure how to say,  _ not with someone I know,  _ and  _ not with someone who’s not really a friend,  _ and  _ not with someone who’s not going away but isn’t staying the night.  _

“But?” Willy prompts. 

Zach just shrugs. “It’s different. Y’know.” 

“Right,” Willy says. “I’m— the whole being gay thing is sort of new to me.” 

He makes a mental note of the gay thing. “Thought you were having a lot of sex this summer.”

“Making up for lost time,” Willy says, and Zach’s not quite sure if it’s a joke or not. 

“Guess that’s one way to do it,” Zach says, not really sure what ‘it’ is. “How’s that working out for you?”

“Well, it turns out that having sex with guys is easy, but having  _ good  _ sex with guys—” He shrugs. “It’s been kind of a weird summer.” 

Zach considers where his mouth was ten minutes ago, and silently agrees. “So this is good, then.” 

“Oh,” Willy says, sounding a little surprised. “I guess it is, yeah.” 

Zach’s not really sure how he feels about that, or how he’s going to respond, but thankfully, the kettle goes off then. 

They end up drinking it on the couch, and Zach puts on a baseball game so they don’t have to worry about talking. Willy’s not exactly cuddled up against him, but he’s apparently morally opposed to sitting in a normal, forward-facing way, so he’s got the tips of his toes tucked under Zach’s thighs. 

It’s… not bad, really. If pressed, Zach might admit that it’s almost nice. They don’t really say much, even though Willy does do his fair share of weird, out of place hyena laughing at the game. Zach’s too tired to roll his eyes, though, and eventually Willy must start to get sleepy too, because at some point, Zach wakes up on his couch, apparently having been asleep for the end of the game and then some, and Willy’s making a light snoring sound, his head tipped over to rest on the back of Zach’s couch. It doesn’t look all that comfortable from where Zach’s sitting. 

He blinks his eyes open, and tries to think about what he should do. Willy could, theoretically, stay over tonight, but he wouldn’t want to wake him up and invite him back into the bedroom. He also feels weird about letting someone he had sex with sleep on the couch, though; like, sure, it’s been a few hours, but it’s the principle of the thing. 

He’s not really sure Willy would be a good person to share a bed with, or at least, enough that Zach wants to go out of his way to wake him up and present him with that option. Sleep-Willy is already snoring, and Zach’s willing to bet that he rolls around at night, kicks the covers off and drools on pillows and shit, and Zach isn’t the heaviest sleeper, especially in the summer heat. Plus, he doesn’t really want to wear clothing to bed in July, but he’s not sure about the etiquette of sleeping naked together after you’ve already put your clothing back on.

Thankfully, he doesn’t really have to do much, because when Zach gets up off the couch, Willy stirs, slowly lifting his head. 

“Oh, fuck, it’s late,” Willy says. “Sorry.”

“You’re fine,” Zach says. 

“I should go,” Willy says, and Zach is only a little hurt by that, even though Willy really should go, and Zach mostly wants him to. At least, Zach should mostly want him to; the part of him that wants to see exactly how bad Willy is at sharing a bed is only winning out because Zach is still mostly asleep and doesn’t want to get up to let Willy out, probably. 

“You good to drive?” he asks. 

“I took a cab,” Willy says, yawning. “Your couch is dangerously comfortable, by the way.” 

“It says thank you,” Zach says, and Willy does this tired giggle that’s unnecessarily cute, in Zach’s opinion. 

“You’re welcome, bud,” he says, patting the cushion, and then he gets up, his movements heavy with sleep. It’s dark, and Zach’s comfortable, so he doesn’t try to stop himself from staring. Willy’s sort of mesmerizing; Zach’s eyes are just drawn to him, with a soft, easy, natural sort of focus. 

“I’ll walk you to the door,” Zach says, a little belatedly.

“I know where it is,” Willy says, walking past Zach, who almost makes an effort to move, but doesn’t. “Go back to sleep.” 

“I have to get to my bed,” Zach says. 

“You’re not gonna make it,” Willy says, sliding on his shoes. “Give in to the couch.” 

“Never,” Zach says, his eyes already falling shut. 

“Sure,” Willy says, like he doesn’t believe him. “Alright, I’m heading out.” 

“Drive safe, sleep well,” Zach says, lying down and sloppily covering himself with a throw blanket, and the last thing he hears before he dozes off for the night is Willy laughing as the door closes behind him. 

It’s not the worst sound in the world to fall asleep to, actually.

…… 

The weirdest part of hooking up with Willy is— 

Or, okay. The whole fucking thing is weird, really, so there’s no one part of it that Zach can say is weirder than all the rest. It’s weird that he hasn’t quite shaken the vague feelings of irritation he associates with Willy’s face reflexively; it’s weird that those feelings are now joined by excitement in equal measure. It’s weird how Zach doesn’t suddenly find himself mistaking Willy’s bullshit for irresistible charm, like the rest of the world seems to, but it’s also weird how Willy doesn’t seem to be laying it on as heavy these days. 

It’s weird how Zach finds himself laughing at Willy’s jokes a little more, because Willy usually puts him in a good mood. 

It’s weird that William Nylander is now a probable cause of Zach’s good moods, sometimes.

But what’s a little weirder than that is that Zach and Willy are still not really friends. They get along a little better, and they’re probably closer now than they’ve ever been before, but it’s not like they text about their lives or talk about their hopes and dreams, or even their hobbies. They’re companionable when sex is involved, but outside of that, they don’t really hang out. 

It’s sort of like they’ve reached an understanding, found a way to fit together that works for them, but sometimes Willy will be naked in Zach’s bed and feel as far away as ever, like Zach’s only gotten access to a very select set of information about him. Zach’s probably the only person in the world who knows that Willy likes having hickeys on his thighs, and that he’ll poke at them as long as they’re there, just so he can feel the memory in his skin. But Zach doesn’t know how Willy feels about his family living so far away, or if he keeps in touch with the guys who were on the Marlies his first season but got traded, or any of those kinds of small, intimate details. 

But now Zach at least knows all the things he doesn’t know, which parts of Willy are boarded up and locked with a key that Zach doesn’t have. It’s like, with the new closeness comes a new kind of distance, and it doesn’t bother Zach, because he and Willy still aren’t friends. Zach knows what he wants from friends, and what he gets from Willy, and those two things aren’t the same, and Zach is— he’s not sure how he feels about it, but he’s not unhappy, doesn’t feel disappointment deep in his gut when he thinks about the parts of Willy he’ll never really have access to. 

Zach mostly just hopes that there’s someone out there who knows Willy inside and out, though, because even if he’s not sure he could be that person himself, he knows that no one deserves to be that lonely.

…… 

Willy signs his contract extension in July, and Zach had been expecting that, but less expected is the fact that Zach’s doorbell rings as he’s reading about it on Twitter. Zach doesn’t even use Twitter that much, but he figures it’s the best place for up-to-date details on the deal Willy managed to pull. 

He’s surprisingly invested in it. Not just because they’re linemates, either; it’s kinda cool, reading  _ BREAKING NEWS  _ about someone and knowing they’ve had your dick in their mouth. 

When he opens the the door, Willy’s on the other side, which is a strange turn of events, considering he’d been in a meeting with Kyle an hour ago, if multiple verified accounts are to be trusted. 

“Oh,” Zach says, caught off-guard. 

“Hi,” Willy says, tone indiscernible and heavy, but whatever he’s thinking about, it’s a big deal, because he’s out of breath like this couldn’t wait another second. “There’s a thing.” 

“Like, your contract?” 

Willy shakes his head. “No, it’s just— I’m going back to Sweden soon, and I thought— I wanted to stop by here, before I left.” 

“I didn’t know you were going back to Sweden,” Zach says, feeling weirdly disappointed. It’s stupid, because that’s the exact kind of thing Willy doesn’t usually tell him, but it’s still something he would’ve liked to know, anyway. 

“I didn’t tell you,” Willy says, and then he bites his lip. “Kind of on purpose, but— you know how you’re always really gentle, and, like, thoughtful?” 

“Sure,” Zach says, not really sure where this is going. 

“Cut it out,” Willy says, so fast that Zach doesn’t realize what he means at first. 

“What—”

“Stop treating me like I’m going to break,” Willy says. “And stop acting like you’re trying to fix me, and stop acting like I’m doing you a personal disservice every time you can’t fucking read me.”

“I’m—” 

“Shut up, I’m not done,” Willy says. “You didn’t like me because you hate how alike we are, and you can’t fucking see that, even though you act like you know fucking  _ everything.  _ Do you know how annoying it is? This is fun, but you need to get off your fucking high horse.“

“Where is this coming from?” Zach says, a little bewildered.

“I don’t know,” Willy says. “It’s been bothering me for a while, and I’m just— I’m sick of it, okay?” 

“So, what do you want me to do?” 

“Listen to me,” Willy says. “Stop trying to be my therapist just because you don’t want to deal with your own fucking emotional barrier bullshit. Why aren’t you angry anymore? Be angry.” 

“What, you want me to yell at you or something?” 

“I don’t fucking know,” Willy says, almost screaming. “You’re just so fucking closed off, and I’m tired of, like, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for you to finally snap.” 

“You lost me,” Zach says honestly. 

“It’s like— you don’t  _ like  _ me. You don’t, and that’s fine, but can you just start acting like it again?” 

“I don’t—” Zach cuts himself off, because he’s about to say,  _ I don’t not like you,  _ except that’s never been true before, and this whole thing is predicated on them not liking each other, so if that’s not the case anymore, that’s… kind of a big deal. “What do you mean, ‘again’?” 

“Like, what happened to the guy who hated me so much he pushed me against a brick wall and dropped to his fucking knees?” Willy says, suddenly in Zach’s face, and Zach doesn’t ask him to take off his shoes. “Remember that?” 

_ It’s different now,  _ Zach thinks, except he does remember that, remembers the way it had felt like a confession. 

This isn’t about Zach, this is about a billion things in Willy’s life that has nothing to do with it, and Zach doesn’t want to be a minor character in the William Nylander show, but at the same time— 

“There are moments,” Willy goes on, his voice low and his hands fisted in the fabric of Zach’s shirt. “When it almost seems like you’re gonna actually make me feel something, but then you go back to holding back. All bites, no bruises, right?” 

“What do you want me to do,” Zach says again, trying to sound firm, push back. 

“I want you to fuck me,” Willy says, his voice low and even in a way that goes right to Zach’s dick, and it’s like they’re fighting again, and this time, Zach has a sinking feeling that Willy’s going to win. “I want you to fuck me so hard I feel it all the way in Sweden.” 

“We can’t just—”

“You ate me out for-fucking- _ ever  _ a week ago,” Willy says. “I’ve fingered myself every day to the memory of that, you know.” 

“Jesus,” Zach says. 

“Come  _ on,”  _ Willy says, tugging Zach closer. “Give me something, please.”

Zach wants to say that he’s already given Willy so fucking much, wants to scream it, and he knows he’s right where Willy wants him, but he doesn’t fucking care anymore. He’s not sure how much more he has to give or what Willy’s entitled to, but Willy wants a fight, and Zach can feel it. 

It’s a biting kiss, all teeth and anger and heat. Zach’s got his hands on Willy’s hips and he’s pulling at him like Willy’s going to float away if he doesn’t hold him close, and he’s not going to, but Zach thinks that Willy needs to feel like this, needs to be held in place. He’s almost clawing at Zach, pushing him back and pulling him in at the same time, and this is going to be messy if Zach doesn’t get their hands and feet on the same page, but honestly, he’s pretty sure that if they trip over something in the middle of the hallway, Willy wouldn’t care, wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t even pretend to mind it. 

Zach knows that all this anger is built up, a representation of an old vestige of a feud, but it’s intoxicating to feel like this about someone; to want and be wanted with so much force, to feel this build and know it’s going to boil over, to  _ want  _ it to be too much. 

It’s never something Zach’s been into before. With everyone else, it’s always been about tenderness and attention and making each other feel good, but Willy makes him want to tear his hair out, sometimes, so Zach can’t help but yank at his, because it’s soft and stupidly blonde and always manages to fall so perfectly in his face.

There’s not— Zach knows he’s not as angry as Willy wants him to be, not anymore, but he tries to muster up some of the old irritation. Willy’s laugh used to make him want to punch walls, and his dumb smirk used to be the most annoying thing in the world, not kind of charming from the right angles. On a different day, with a different mood, Zach might feed into whatever Willy’s feeling right now, but all he can do is accommodate it instead, and he gets the feeling that Willy doesn’t want him to try. 

But now Zach feels like he’s failing, as he lets Willy shove him ungracefully into the bedroom and pretends to be quite as overwhelmed, and feels a little like Willy’s screwing something up by needing something Zach can’t try to give, and this is just another version of Zach working around other people’s crap again and again and again, and he latches onto that. 

If Willy wants anger, wants honesty, wants Zach to feel something as much as he’s feeling things, then they can do it on Zach’s terms, too. 

“Slow down,” Zach says, firm, and Willy pulls back and looks at Zach like that was the last thing he expected him to say. “At least pretend to be patient.”

“I’m patient,” Willy says, like he hadn’t just practically pushed Zach into this bedroom without coming up for air once. 

He’s still trying to be a fucking brat, is the thing, and Zach is not going to let himself be goaded into sex. He wants to have sex with Willy, and Willy wants to have sex with him, and they’ve had plenty of sex before, so there’s no reason for Willy to be playing these fucking games. 

“You’re acting like you want to get this over with,” Zach says. “I’m not doing that.” 

“What if I do want to get this over with?” Willy says, and when Zach raises an eyebrow, he amends, “I mean, the beginning part. I just—” 

“Want me to fuck you?” Zach finishes, his voice impressively calm. 

Willy looks just the slightest bit flustered at that, which is precisely what Zach had been aiming for. “Cut to the chase, right?” He doesn’t sound nearly as even as Zach does. 

“What’s wrong with the rest of it?” Zach says. 

“It’s— I’ve done all that,” Willy says. “ _ We’ve  _ done all that.” 

“So?” 

“So, I want to do this before I go,” Willy says. “And you always get so fucking weird if you’re not—” He cuts himself off.

“If I’m not what?” 

“If you’re not  _ mad,” _ Willy says. “So can’t you just— can’t you be mad? Please?”

“I can’t just be mad,” Zach says. 

“Did I lose the ability to piss you off?” Willy says. “Or are you back to pretending you’re nice to everyone all the time?”

“I try to be nice,” Zach says, a little defensive, and if Willy’s trying to get his blood boiling, it’s starting to work. 

“Yeah, and you’re sick of it,” Willy says. “I’m giving you an out here, man, that’s— isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zach says.

“You’re nice,” Willy says. “You’re obsessed with being nice, and it drives you up the fucking wall that you don’t like me and have no good reason to.”

Zach isn’t sure if Willy’s full of bullshit, or if he’s got him nailed down perfectly, but either way, it feels like a line being crossed, Willy saying something he was supposed to keep in his head. It’s ballsy as hell, the exact kind of brash and arrogant that Zach has come to expect from Willy, but he didn’t think Willy would ever read him like that and touch on something that Zach wishes weren’t true. 

“You try to piss me off,” Zach says. “You go out of your way to.”

“You’re the one who hates that you hate me,” Willy says. 

“I don’t hate you,” Zach says, low and angry, and he takes a step toward Willy, who sits down on the bed and looks up at Zach with his annoying, pretty smirk.

“You keep telling yourself that,” Willy says. “Maybe fuck me ‘til it’s true.” 

“Stop that,” Zach says, and he wants to roll his eyes, maybe should, because that’s the only way Willy will listen to him. “I like having sex with you, I’m not doing this because I’m mad at you, dickhead.”   

“Then why are you?” Willy says, like it’s a challenge, and it’s the worst kind of goading, where Zach feels like any answer he gives is the one Willy wants. 

Might as well go with the truth, then. “I like making you feel good,” Zach says. “I like making you come.” 

Willy grabs for Zach’s belt, but Zach moves back, and tugs at the hem of Willy’s shirt. 

“You first.”

“Why?”

“Does there have to be a reason?” Zach says. “I asked.”

Willy just looks at him, eyebrows raised. 

“Do you really need another person to tell you that you look good shirtless?” Zach says. “You have abs. You’re blonde. Figure it out.”

Willy laughs, a little surprised. “Is this your way of telling me you think I’m hot?”

“You know you’re hot.”

“You’ve never told me you think so,” Willy says, but he pulls his shirt over his head and leans back. “Happy?” 

“Mmm,” Zach hums, letting his eyes trail over Willy’s chest. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, but he’s never liked the way Willy likes to be looked at, so he’s never really been able to enjoy it this much. 

He gets down on his knees in front of Willy, yanks down his pants, then starts to kiss his thighs, his groin, presses his fingers in the place where his legs meet his hips. 

“You gonna blow me or what?” Willy says, his hips bucking up. 

“Can’t I take my time?” 

“Sure, but give a guy some warning if you’re gonna be a tease.” 

“Consider yourself warned,” Zach says, and then he kisses at the base of Willy’s dick, which twitches. 

“Does this make you, like, the ultimate control freak?” 

“Plenty of people like to go slow,” Zach says. “This is pretty mild.”

“Do you ever want more than mild?” Willy asks. 

“If I do, you’ll know,” Zach says, and he’s only trying to be honest, but Willy  _ reacts, _ eyes going wide and dick twitching in Zach’s hand. 

It’s mesmerizing, watching Willy struggle to come up with something snappy to say when Zach’s clearly gotten to him. Zach could probably watch only this for the rest of his life and be perfectly happy.

“Hope that’s a promise,” Willy manages to say, and it’s a lot more than Zach is expecting, but Zach just shudders through the words, then puts his mouth back on Willy’s dick to say,  _ it is.  _

It’s the slowest blowjob Zach has ever given. Willy squirms the entire time, protesting the pace like he’s doing it on purpose, daring Zach to go even slower. It’s agony for both of them, because Zach’s still wearing clothes, dick pressing insistently against his zipper, but he wants to drag it out, feels a little bit like he needs to, like if he gives in and gives Willy what he wants that easily, that’ll only lead to disappointment for both of them, like it’s not worth it if Zach’s not holding off for as long as possible. 

Zach’s jaw aches. Willy’s so hard, precome everywhere, and he’s probably so fucking sensitive that Zach could probably get him to come fast, if he wanted to. 

“You wanna finish?” Zach says, pulling off. 

Willy shakes his head. “Not before you fuck me.” 

“Sure you’re gonna last that long?” Zach says, mostly because he’s genuinely not sure Willy can. His dick is red and so, so hard.

“Yes,” Willy says. “If we get to it fast, just— fuck, fuck the blowjob, just— get inside me.” 

“It’s not—” 

“I know it’s not a race,” Willy snaps, and Zach doesn’t know if he’s ever seen anyone this desperate. “Grab the lube and finger me before I start to do it myself.”

He’s almost dizzy with the feeling of being wanted this badly, because that’s what’s happening. Willy  _ wants  _ him, and Zach’s had a decent amount of sex, but he’s never exactly been wanted like this, frantic, hot, almost angry in the best possible way. It’s a heady feeling, the sudden rush of power that comes with that.

“You wanna do it yourself?” Zach says, even though he knows the answer. 

“Oh my god, you’re such an _ asshole—”  _

“Willy.” His voice is gentle, firm, in control, and Willy must like that, because he makes this whimpering noise. 

“I want you to do it,” Willy says. “Your fingers. You. Just—  _ Zach.” _

Willy sounds broken, and Zach feels it everywhere in his body. He’s not in control of anything, he realizes, and he can’t even bring himself to mind; he’s every bit as far gone as Willy is, and he hopes Willy knows that he could probably get Zach to do anything, if he said Zach’s name like that. 

“Fuck,” Zach says, because everything is so much, and the next few seconds are a scramble to get clothes off and Willy on the bed, and then he’s on his hands and knees, waiting there, exposed, while Zach lubes up his fingers. 

He rubs Willy’s lower back when he presses the first finger in, and it goes easily, like this is the one place Willy isn’t holding any tension. The rest of him is trembling, but his hole is loose, enough that a second and third finger happen shortly after, and then Willy’s pushing back against him, literally begging Zach to fuck him, fuck him,  _ fuck him—  _

“Not like this,” Zach says, and Willy lets out a whine that’s so loud Zach would be concerned about his neighbors hearing it, if his mind was able to process the world outside this bed right now. 

“How?” Willy says. “I swear to god, if you don’t—” 

“On your back,” Zach says. “I want to see you.” 

He doesn’t even know it until he says it, but once he does, it feels urgent, that Zach be able to look at Willy’s face when they do this. He wants to see Willy’s throat, the way his eyes squeeze shut, wants the awful and beautiful noises he makes right in his ear as he fucks into him.

“Fine,” Willy says, like it doesn’t matter either way as long as Zach ends up inside him, and Zach takes his fingers out so Willy can flip over as he slides on a condom. 

Willy isn’t quiet as Zach slides into him for the first time, but Zach’s breath is caught in his throat, like he’s feeling too much to be able to make any sort of noise. Their faces are close enough to kiss, but that would take more coordination than Zach has right now, so he just squeezes his eyes shut and breathes.

“You good?” Zach says. 

“Fuck,” Willy chokes out. “Yeah, yes, god, it’s just— a lot.”

“Yeah,” Zach says. “Holy fuck.” 

“Is it— for you?”

Zach nods. “God, you feel good.”

Willy shudders at that. “Keep going.” 

It’s slow at first, but eventually Zach bottoms out, and they begin to develop a pace, and it’s just— it’s all sensation, all bodies and no thinking. It’s Zach and Willy and sex, the overwhelming kind, and Zach’s never had this before, never felt so connected to another person, not even the people he’s dated, because he’d never even realized that this was an option. He’s always been careful, assumed the alternative was heartbreak, but this is pretty much as reckless as he’s ever been, and worry is the last thing on his mind. 

It’s like ‘too much’ is the point of everything, and it feels so fucking right, even though Zach’s fucking William fucking Nylander, who is a mess of ego and emotional baggage. He’s never even  _ liked _ him before, but now it’s like— Zach needs to invent a new word, for whatever he feels about Willy right now, because all he can really say about it is that it’s something tucked between lust and fascination and obsession and frustrations that he’s desperate to let go of.

There’s something, something big, but Zach doesn’t have room for it in his chest right now, because he’s full of Willy, and Willy is full of him, and it’s too good for Zach to even try and describe to himself. 

“Fuck, Willy, you’re—” Zach starts, but Willy cuts him off. 

“God, your voice,” Willy says. “You’re  _ you, _ holy fuck.”

“Willy,” Zach says, because that’s apparently the only word he knows, right now.

“God, Zach, you treat me so good,” Willy says. “Fuck, I hate that— you make me feel like shit, but you’re so fucking good to me.” He sounds half-there, the words tumbling out of his mouth like he’s too busy feeling Zach to stop them. 

It’s overwhelming, the way Willy is tight and hot and under Zach, saying things that make Zach’s heart hurt for him while setting his entire body on fire, and there’s the start of something dangerous sitting low in Zach’s belly, the kind of want he shouldn’t feel for someone who he can barely even begin to understand. 

“Gonna miss you,” Zach pants. “It’s always so good with you.” 

“Yeah?” 

“You feel so good,” Zach says. “You make me feel—” He cuts himself off with a gasp. “Fuck.” 

“What do I make you feel?” Willy says. “Come on, tell me, tell me—” 

Zach can’t put words to it, is the thing. It’s something he’s ignored for so long, buried so deep in himself that he’s lost the vocabulary to describe it, just knows that it’s there, and it’s exciting and terrifying and a whole whirlwind of everything Zach is afraid to let himself want. 

“Willy,” he says. “Fuck, Willy—” 

“Tell me,” Willy says. “Please, Zach.” 

“You don’t even know how you make me feel,” is what Zach goes with, and it’s the safest thing he can think of to say, and it’s still so much that he wants to hide. “I’m obsessed with it.”

“Yes, fuck, keep talking,” Willy says. 

“Want you to come,” Zach says. “Want to make you come. Fuck, I want to watch you.” 

“You first,” Willy says. “You come first, then I’ll come.” 

“Wanna feel you come around me.” Zach is way past the point of thinking before he speaks, or thinking at all, really. He’s running on want, just a series of impulses strung together and falling out of his mouth without any sort of filter. He doesn’t even care enough to be embarrassed.

“Oh my god,” Willy says. “Fuck, are you close?” 

Zach’s been close for a while. “Could be.” 

“Fuck,” Willy says, and then he lets his head fall back on the mattress and wraps a hand around his cock. “Fuck, alright, I’m gonna.” He starts to jerk himself off, and Zach takes that as his cue to speed up, letting go of the reins he’s had on himself just enough for him to get lost in the feeling of Willy around him. 

Zach comes first, after only a few thrusts, and it’s so much, the way he can feel the backs of Willy’s thighs pressing against his hips as he stutters into him. There’s a moment where he thinks he whites out, and when he regains a little more sense of the world around him, he’s not even done, because Willy’s stroking himself furiously, like he’s desperate for an orgasm after being on edge for so long, on the precipice of overstimulation without even coming. Meanwhile, Willy’s clenching around Zach’s softening dick, and it’s so sensitive that Zach might actually explode if Willy doesn’t come soon. 

Thankfully, it’s only a little bit before Willy’s crying out, and Zach can’t help but notice the way his skin is red everywhere, eyes squeezed shut and mouth carelessly hanging half-open. There’s absolutely nothing sexy about it, except for how it’s the hottest thing Zach has ever seen. 

Willy’s come is everywhere, and Zach’s not hard enough, and logically, he knows he should pull out, but he doesn’t want to leave Willy, doesn’t want to create any inch of distance between them. It’s so fucking close, and Zach doesn’t want to give that up, not when he’s finally getting a good look at Willy’s unguarded face for what might be the first time, not when Willy’s about to be half a world away. 

He feels like he’s settling into the aftermath of a beautiful disaster, the way Willy’s hair is going in all sorts of directions, the way Willy’s expression is plain and unguarded and taken apart, the way Willy doesn’t seem like he’s in any rush to cover that up again. And Zach is still  _ inside  _ him, and covered in him, and the whole place smells like sex and William Nylander, traces of it written into every particle of the air in the room.

Willy has taken over this moment of Zach’s life, and Zach wants to make the moment last longer because of it. Whatever that means is too scary for Zach to put words to, so he gulps, then clears his throat a little to get Willy’s attention.

“Hm?” Willy says, blinking his big, unfairly blue eyes up at Zach. They look even shinier than normal. 

“I’m gonna pull out,” Zach says.

Willy makes a discontented noise at that, and Zach gets it, but he really can’t stay here forever, so he grabs the base of the condom and slowly pulls out, gritting his teeth at the slow discomfort of it, even if being soft inside of Willy wasn’t particularly comfortable to start. 

Once they’re disentangled, Willy lies on his side, his back facing Zach, and Zach is half-tempted to nudge him to roll over, but he thinks Willy might need this second to himself. Anyway, Zach’s got his legs thrown over the side of the bed as he takes the condom off, and his back is pressed to Willy’s back, which Willy seems to like as much as he does. This is how they can ground each other, for now; it’s comfortable, a way to keep the space they need while letting each other know they’re still there. 

“I’m just gonna go throw this out,” Zach says. “I’ll be back in a second.”

“Alright,” Willy says, turning onto his back. He makes a weird face when he does, and Zach’s cheeks go a little pink when he realizes what Willy is reacting to. “Don’t take too long, I’ve gotta wash up.”

Zach nods, and he does try his best to not linger in the bathroom, though he takes a few seconds to splash water on his face and look his reflection in the eye. He thinks he should be a different person, now that he’s seen Willy like that, but for all his insides are reorganizing themselves, the outside is largely unchanged. 

He grabs a washcloth on a whim, because Willy’s voice had sounded sleepy, and what they just did feels big. It’d make sense for Willy to not quite be ready to move. 

Willy spots the damp towel in Zach’s hand as soon as he walks in. “Oh, sweet, I was trying to send vibes.”

“Vibes?” Zach says, climbing onto the bed.

“Like, ‘please bring me a towel please’ vibes,” Willy says. “Guess I’m telepathic.”

“Tell Babs, he’ll be thrilled,” Zach says, and Willy makes a grabby hands gesture for the towel, but Zach ignores it and starts wiping Willy’s stomach off himself.

Willy’s eyes flutter shut at the sensation. “I think you should wait at least ten minutes after having your dick in my ass before mentioning Babs,” he says.

“Only ten?”

“Maybe twenty,” Willy says. “Or a full hour. I don’t know. Time is fake, and I’m never leaving your bed.”

“Don’t you have a flight to catch?” Zach says.

“Tomorrow night,” Willy says. “I probably won’t even start packing until noon, so I’ll just stay right here until then.”

There’s a beat of silence, where both of them seem to realize what Willy’s just said and try and react. After a second, Willy says, “I was joking—” at the same time Zach goes, “You could,” breaking the awkward silence in awkward unison. 

“I didn’t mean— like,” Willy says. “I was just kidding.”

“Do you really think I’d kick you out?” Zach says, more curious than anything else; Willy has never asked to stay the night, but Zach had always assumed it was because he didn’t particularly want to, because that’s not how they’ve worked, up until now.

“Well, no,” Willy says, and Zach nudges him to roll over, so he can clean the lube up that’s dropped down between his thighs before putting the washcloth on the nightstand. “But you agree to plenty of things that you don’t want. It’s sort of what you do.”

“So you thought I didn’t want you to crash here after,” Zach says.

Willy shrugs, still lying on his stomach, hair falling forward a little. “I mean, did you?” He bites his lip. “Do you?”

He looks at Willy for second, incredulity swirling with sadness inside him, because he’s not sure how Willy doesn’t know that things are better when he’s there, and worse when he’s not. 

“I think you should stay,” Zach says.

Willy blushes a little, and Zach’s stomach somersaults. “Promise you’re telling the truth?”

“Yeah,” Zach says. “That’s the point of this, right? Honesty.”

“Honesty and orgasms, yeah,” Willy says, and Zach lets out this soft chuckle that doesn't do anything to make this moment feel less heavy. Maybe this is just— a heavy thing. Maybe it shouldn’t be lighter. 

Zach thinks back to the things Willy had said before, that had made his chest feel empty for a second, even in the midst of the overwhelming heat of being inside him.

“I don’t want you to feel like shit about yourself,” Zach says. “I— I’m really, really sorry if I make you feel like that.” 

Willy hums at that. “Your pillow talk is depressing.”

It’s deflection. “I’m just saying,” Zach says. “I’m not here to— this isn’t about me wanting to make you feel bad.” 

Instead of arguing, or trying to brush Zach off, Willy grabs his hand, squeezes a little. His eyes are starting to droop, and Zach’s got this aching sort of hope that he won’t leave this bed any time soon. 

“I know,” Willy says. “I just needed this today. Just wanted to know I could ask for what I needed.” 

Zach feels like his chest is opening up, like seeing Willy all calm and sleepy and fucked out and beautiful in his bed is actually tearing him apart. He feels exposed, feels like he wants to cry, feels weak. It’s like giving in, letting his breath catch a little, and Willy doesn’t notice it, but Zach does, and he wishes he could forget this moment, but he has a feeling this is a turning point. 

It’s probably good that Willy’s heading to Sweden soon. 

“You can,” Zach says. “You can always ask for what you want.”

“Maybe one day you will, too,” Willy says, sounding barely-there, and Zach’s pretty sure Willy thinks he’s dreaming. 

Zach is painfully awake, and painfully aware, and it’s all he can do to take deep breaths and try not to stare at Willy’s eyelashes, resting long and almost sharp on his cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i'm dropping this in the middle of the night. special shoutout to rachel for the editing work on this chapter <3


	4. Chapter 4

The thing about Willy leaving for Sweden is that Zach probably should feel like his life is going back to normal. 

Typically, Willy’s been… a strong presence in his life. The same way the giant crack in the sidewalk outside his apartment is a strong presence, or the smoke detector that went off at the slightest hint of shower steam in his dorm had been a strong presence. Loud, irritating, invasive, and not all that pleasant.

And, like, sleeping with him hadn’t exactly changed that, so there’s no real reason for Zach to feel like there’s a hole in his life. 

Still, the same way he finds himself stepping carefully every time he walks outside or hastily closing the bathroom door after a shower, he finds himself more accustomed to Willy’s presence in his life than he’d expected to be, so the fact that he’s not there anymore is more than a little jarring. There are no texts that he has to answer, no nights when he remembers that Willy’s coming over at the last second, no random afternoons where he opens the door to find a familiar blonde, blue-eyed smirk staring back at him. 

Zach finds himself with an abundance of free time and no clue what to do with it, and the confusion and aimlessness starts to feel a lot like things he shouldn’t feel when it comes to Willy, things like longing and loneliness and— 

Whatever. It’s not those things, really, just a weirdly empty schedule, and so Zach tries to focus on what to do with free time now that he has it. He agrees to extra book tour events, shows up at summer camps and other places where bright young kids ask him about writing and hockey and other things he loves, and at night, he watches TV, goes to the movies more often than he usually would, and exhausts his contact list catching up with everyone who is even remotely near Toronto. 

He doesn’t  _ miss  _ Willy, is the thing, but that doesn’t mean he’s not inexplicably happy to see Willy’s name when he calls as Zach’s in line at Starbucks, trying to decide how much caffeine he’s gonna need to get through the book event he’s got to be at in an hour. 

“What do you want,” he says when he picks up, because Willy doesn’t need to know how glad Zach is that he called. 

“Hey,” Willy says, “Any chance you’re alone?”

“I… could be,” Zach says, glancing around the shop as his face goes a little hot. “What’s up?” 

“Depends on what you’re wearing,” Willy says, and a part of Zach is aware that he should just hang the fuck up, maybe text Willy that he’ll call him back or something, but Zach’s apparently an idiot who’s been more bored than he realized, so he just ducks out of line and makes a beeline for the bathroom. 

“Aren’t you in Sweden?” Zach says, closing the door behind him and praying this bathroom is decently soundproof. “You can’t bootycall me from across the ocean.” 

“I’m not expecting you to get on a plane, just— wanted to know if you’d wanna stay on the phone with me for a few minutes.” 

“So you can—” Zach gulps. “Like, right now?” 

“I’m not asking you to talk dirty to me,” Willy says. “You don’t even have to talk at all, just— I like knowing that you’re listening.” 

Zach’s face probably invents a new shade of red at that, and he’s a little horrified at how little he minds it. “I’m in public.” 

“You sucked my dick in public,” Willy says. “I won’t make a ton of noise, it’ll be fine.” 

“That’s— I’ve got headphones in,” Zach says. “I just don’t get what you want me to do.” 

“Just be here.” Willy sounds frustrated. “I don’t know, I’m bored, I haven’t gotten laid in like, a week, and it’s—” he gulps. “It’s just nice having you here, I guess.” 

_ Lonely,  _ he doesn’t say, but Zach hears it anyway, and the knot in his stomach moves up to his chest, tightening, twisting itself into the start of an ache. 

He hasn’t let himself think about it, but he’s found more gaps than he expected to in his life with Willy being gone, spaces that Willy had once filled. 

He doesn’t want to hang up. That thought makes it a little harder to breathe, but he forces it out of his head for the time being, because in this moment, he has Willy’s voice, and it’s almost enough. 

“You alone?” 

“Yeah,” Willy says on the other end. “In bed.” 

“And you’re— what are you wearing?” 

Willy does this gentle sort of half-laugh, half-gasp noise. “Y’know. Not much.” 

“Oh,” Zach says, and he feels his face go hot. 

He pictures Willy, spread out on the bed and touching himself slowly. Maybe he can hear the blush in Zach’s voice, and maybe he’s smiling. Zach hopes he is, because Willy’s got a nice smile when he doesn’t think anyone’s looking, soft and shiny-eyed and almost bashful. 

“There’s a really nice blanket,” Willy says, his voice only a little strained. “I spread it out over the bed. I think it’s velvet? It’s so soft.” 

If someone had told Zach before the summer started that he’d be standing in a Starbucks bathroom listening to William Nylander get off as he talked about throw blankets, he would’ve squinted at them for a very long time before slowly shaking his head and walking away. Now, he’s— well, he still can’t quite believe this is happening, but it  _ is,  _ and it doesn’t feel as weird as Zach thinks it should. 

“I bet that feels really nice,” Zach says. 

“It does,” Willy says. “I’m so tired.” 

“You gonna go to sleep when you’re done?” 

“Probably,” Willy says. “Woke up early this morning, busy day. I’m fucking exhausted.” 

Zach almost asks him what he did, but thinks better of it. “It must be nice to lie down on that blanket, then.” 

“It is,” Willy agrees, and he sounds content.

Zach wonders if Willy’s eyes are already falling shut, if he’s gonna jerk himself off lazily until he comes all over his stomach. It’s never like that when it’s the two of them together; it’s always fast and angry and frantic, like they’re trying to go fast enough that they don’t have to think about why they’re doing this and why it’s so good between them. And it’s kind of incredible like that, but it’s always so much, because if whatever’s between them isn’t huge and magnetic and full of all the feelings they don’t want to put words to, they’ll have to face what’s happening underneath all that. 

They’re on the phone, though, so anything else that’s going on in this moment is lost in the static of the call. 

“You don’t have to talk,” Zach finds himself saying. “It’s okay if you just want me to listen.” 

Willy hums at that. “Yeah,” he says, and Zach can practically feel him relax halfway across the world. 

Zach’s never paid that much attention to the sounds of sex before, but he recognizes them in this moment; the hitched breaths, the swallowed whines, the low hums that turn into gasps. It’s real, too, is the thing, sleepy and erratic and sometimes unflattering. Willy’s not all that loud, doesn’t sound like he’s putting on a show for anyone, and Zach would be willing to bet that he’s making some dumb faces right now, maybe trying to be a little quieter, just because he can. 

Willy may be thousands of miles away, hiding behind the facelessness of a phone call, but still. This is Willy wanting something and asking Zach for it, Willy showing some trust, Willy with no fake flirting or jokes or deflection. This is  _ Willy,  _ the version of him that’s been buried underneath all the Personality for so long, and Zach’s finally seeing him for something longer than a flash. 

He’s comfortable and soft and safe, and Zach feels something in his chest loosen in relief. The real Willy—the person with needs and wants and fears—isn’t that far from the Willy Zach knows after all, and he’s okay, or at least, is capable of being okay, and is okay right now. 

“Oh,” Willy says on the other end, and then there are a few strangled noises, and then, presumably, he comes. Zach just keeps listening, keeps soaking up the moment. He’s not even turned on, really. Or, like, if he is, that’s secondary to the feeling of— 

He’s not sure what this feeling is, but it’s a little like want, is taking over his entire body, and makes Willy’s breathing sound like music.

Once Zach hears that Willy’s breath has more or less gone back to normal, he clears his throat. “So, is— are you good?”

“Yeah,” Willy says. “Yeah, I am— uh, thanks. For the phone call.” 

“Of course.” Zach feels weird accepting gratitude for this, feels like he should be thanking Willy, but he figures that this is maybe a mutual thanks kind of situation. 

“Was this weird?” Willy asks.

Zach wants to laugh, but he can’t, so he just shakes his head before he remembers that Willy can’t see. “Nah,” he says. “It was fun.” 

“Good.” Willy sounds pleased, and a little sleepy. 

“You should go to bed,” Zach says. “I should… leave this Starbucks.” 

“You’re at Starbucks?” 

“Yeah,” Zach says, and for some reason, that’s the thing that makes him blush. 

“Which one?” Willy sounds genuinely intrigued, but in a mumbly, half-asleep kind of way. “What’d you order?” 

“Sleep,” Zach says, instead of answering. He’s not sure if he’s only ever coming to this Starbucks, or never setting foot on this block again. “Put that blanket to use.”

“Bossy,” he mumbles, and Zach hears rustling on the other end. “Night, then. Thanks again.” 

“Any time.” Zach would correct the word choice, because this is, in fact, not an ‘any time’ kind of activity, but Willy doesn’t even seem to notice. “Sleep tight.” 

“The tightest,” Willy says, and then he hangs up. 

Zach’s first thought, when he starts to be able to think again, is that he really, really hopes no one heard that, and he really hopes there’s no line, but those aren’t things he has control over, so instead of letting himself worry too much about them, he just impulsively sends Willy a single smiley-face emoji text for when he wakes up, then washes his hands and leaves the bathroom. 

There’s no line outside, and no one seems to give him any weird looks as he walks back out to the cafe, but he stuffs his hands in his pocket and makes a beeline for the door anyway, because if he doesn’t make eye contact with anyone, he doesn’t have to think about the fact that he just had phone sex with William Nylander in a Starbucks bathroom, or the fact that he can’t stop smiling about it. 

…… 

Zach and Willy keep up, sort of, while Willy is in Sweden, which is… a thing, and if Zach were held at gunpoint and forced to admit it, he’d maybe concede that it’s kind of a nice thing. 

It’s not like they try. Aside from the phone sex, there’s also things like Zach snapping Willy random socks and underwear of his that he’s left around his apartment, and Willy sending Zach a shitton of Bitmojis, and Zach finally caving and getting a Bitmoji and asking Willy for advice on how to set it up, and Willy Skyping Zach so he could tease him for putting his Bitmoji in the Leafs outfit. Zach wouldn’t say it’s flirting, or even quite friendship, but it certainly is friend _ ly.  _ Willy’s alright, and even when he does things that would’ve made Zach want to tear his own hair out, once upon a time, he finds that these days, he mostly just… doesn’t mind. 

Willy’s funny, he realizes. Willy has great taste in dog gifs, and sends Zach Tasty videos on Instagram, and takes hilarious stealth shots of his brother glaring at the camera. Zach can appreciate a pest when he’s not the one being pestered. 

For the first time in a while, things with Willy are starting to feel simple, and Zach is here for it. He feels lighter, like not knowing what to make of Willy was a weight that’s been lifted off his shoulders. 

One morning, Zach walks out of the rink to find a blurry picture waiting for him, which, after a second, he realizes is Willy and a younger girl— his sister, probably.  _ get u a man who can take a selfie while givin a piggyback ride,  _ the caption reads, and Zach smiles, even when a strange, small, aching feeling pops up in his chest. 

“Whoa there,” Brownie says, and Zach’s head shoots up. 

“What?” he says, feeling weirdly defensive. 

Brownie gives him a look. “You’re smiling.” 

“I smile all the time,” he says. “I’m a happy person.” He knows it sounds weird, and he really wishes it didn’t, because it’s not like Brownie’s accusing him of anything, or like what he’s implying is actually true. It’s just— it’s a cute picture. Whatever.

“Alright,” Brownie says, not convinced at all that nothing is up, and Zach lets it go, because he’s not gonna be able to do much to convince him otherwise. 

_ that seems dangerous _

_ we live on the edge,  _ Willy texts back.  _ she loved ur book btw.  _

_???  _ Zach sends. 

_ we read it the other day,  _ Willy says.  _ apparently i did a good job with the reading [nail polish emoji] _

Zach stops in his tracks and stares at his phone. 

The smile on his face turns into something uncontrollable. He feels warm, like there’s a little piece of the sun in his chest, lighting him up from the inside out, and he shouldn’t, because this is far from the first cute story someone has told him about his book, but it feels more special coming from Willy. 

Which is maybe dangerous, but Willy’s in Sweden, so Zach can’t really be bothered to focus on that part of things. He’s not gonna talk himself out of a good mood, so he just— he lets himself enjoy this. He deserves to, he thinks. 

Brownie’s still looking at him like he’s waiting for Zach to confess to something, but Zach doesn’t let it phase him, just texts Willy,  _ tell her im glad she enjoyed it!  _

_ i enjoyed it too :)  _ Willy sends, and Zach ignores the way his stomach flips at the dumb smiley face. 

_ ^^^ :),  _ he replies. 

It’s maybe close to something it shouldn’t be, but— 

Whatever. Zach’s not gonna question it.

…… 

Zach’s out with some friends after a particularly frustrating family dinner, where his patience with his mom about the whole ‘please stop asking me about my love life’ situation had grown thin. Zach knows she’s pretty much as accepting as he could reasonably hope for her to be, but it’s not always enough, and he’s tired of having to talk around the fact that he sometimes dates guys, of having to correct every ‘she’ with an ‘or he,’ of how it feels like he has to fight this constant battle just to get her to acknowledge it, how she doesn’t feel the need to accompany acceptance with understanding. 

It’s a thing that happens, every so often— one of those huge ugly screaming fights that happens when Zach feels pushed over the edge by it, which is roughly every third time she tries to have a serious conversation about Zach’s love life over dinner. 

Mostly, he’s here to cool down. It’s not like Zach has a particularly strong attachment to the gay community, or whatever, but he’s not straight, and sometimes he needs the solidarity of other people like him. An escape, sort of.

He goes to exactly one gay bar in Toronto, because he’s a little bit paranoid and a creature of habit, so he’s got a lot of memories in this place, flashes of who he’s been at various times in his life— he’d brought Mitch here once, when he was in the middle of the first of many Auston Matthews-related crises, and he’d come here with Brownie early on in his time with the Marlies after a weird stumbled-over coming out. He’d asked a guy for his number, just to prove to himself that he could, and he’s been here on more than one occasion angry and hoping for a hookup, each evening invariably ending with Zach taking a shot or two alone at the bar then going home without doing any more than talking. He’s met Tinder dates here, recommended it to countless people, and used it as his point of contact with the gay world for so long that it’s sort of become a part of him. Not a part of him he thinks about a lot, but still. 

It’s like— he’s been so many different versions of himself here. It’s easier to see which version of himself he is now, and how he’s different from the last one, and he finds that there’s more change between this Zach and the Zach who was here earlier in the summer than he’d expected. This Zach is more confident, more sure, more centered and a little less convinced he knows himself. He certainly feels less like he needs to know everything, and he’s not sure when that changed, when he even realized that needing to know everything was a problem. 

But the thing is— he’s happier now than he was then, more content to leave things unknown and questions unanswered. Maybe that’s why things with his mom had been so irritating earlier; Zach’s okay with her being a work in progress, but he’s a little afraid she doesn’t think she can change. 

And then he’s thinking about the last time he was here, the way he’d been so angry with Willy for being this huge fucking mystery. Willy still is a mystery, is the thing, but Zach’s pretty sure that’s not a bad thing anymore. 

It might even be a good thing. Quite possibly, it’s Zach’s favorite thing. 

He loves questions, and he loves learning, and he loves challenge, and because of Willy, his summer has been full of all those things. This— this whatever it is, with Willy— it’s been like climbing a mountain: daunting insurmountability followed by endless frustration, but eventually you look down and sit there in awe of how far you’ve climbed, and that’s kind of where Zach is right now. Progress is weird, and it’s hard to recognize it while it’s happening, but occasionally, it sneaks up on you. 

Before you know it, you’re on the top of the world looking out over rivers and tree-tops. 

“One sec,” Zach says to the table. “I’ve gotta make a phone call.” 

He’s been more or less engaged in the conversation, but it’s wandered over to normal people jobs, which isn’t something Zach can relate to, so he suspects that his presence won’t exactly be missed. 

He sneaks outside, standing beside the main entrance before wandering around back, to the alley for smokers that is, once again, empty. He sees a cigarette stomped onto the ground, and he knows it’s not the same one Willy had been fidgeting with all those weeks ago, but it reminds him of that moment anyway. 

It feels like eternities have happened between then and now. 

Zach swallows, and quickly scrolls through his contact list before hitting call. 

“Hello?” Willy says, slow and sleepy when he picks up on the fourth ring. “Zach?” 

“Hi,” Zach says. “I… totally forgot about time differences, didn’t I.” 

“What’s going on?” Willy doesn’t sound anything close to awake. 

“Sorry, I’m just— I’m out, it doesn’t matter, I’ll let you get back to sleep.” 

“It’s 6,” Willy says. “I think my alarm’s going off soon, anyway.” 

“Oh,” Zach says. “Okay, then.” 

There’s a pause where neither of them says anything, until Willy goes, “So, why’re you calling me?” 

“Uh,” Zach says, because he doesn’t really have a good answer besides,  _ I sort of needed to hear your voice right now,  _ and he’s pretty sure those aren’t words he knows how to say. 

“Are you drunk?” 

“No,” Zach says. “Not really.” 

“So is this, like, a phone sex thing?” Willy says. “You can do what you want, but it’s a little too early for dirty talk.” 

“No, it’s— it’s not a phone sex thing,” Zach says. “I just—” He stops. He’s not sure what he was going to say in the first place. 

This is the part where he should feel awkward enough that he starts to regret the phone call, but he can’t, not when Willy’s on the other end of the phone, waking up on the other side of the world.

“You just?” Willy prompts, and Zach can’t tell if it’s Willy’s smile he’s hearing, or just his own weird giddiness. 

“When are you coming home?” His voice is too soft, but he doesn’t fucking care. The night is quiet, and this moment is his, is theirs. It feels in-between and not quite real and so beautiful that Zach’s not even sure he deserves it. 

“I am home,” Willy says, sounding kind of fond and a little more alert. 

“You know what I mean,” Zach says. “When are you gonna be back in Toronto?” 

“Why do you want to know?” There’s a giggle in it, and it almost sounds like glitter. Zach never realized Willy twinkled like this before, but now he doesn’t know how he missed it; everything about Willy is casting a soft glow all over Zach, and he knows that’s nothing new. 

“Why do you think I want to know?” 

“You tell me,” Willy says. 

“No, you tell me,” Zach says. “I wanna hear your theories.” 

“I don’t have theories,” Willy says. 

“Fine, then, I wanna hear your guesses,” Zach says. 

“I don’t need to guess, I know,” Willy says. “C’mon, just say it.” 

“You say it.”

There’s a beat, and Zach’s heart is racing now, for some reason. 

Finally, Willy says, “You really missed me, eh?” 

His voice is too soft, but the words land heavy, and there’s this strange spark of disappointment sitting in Zach’s chest, like those weren’t the words he’d been hoping for. 

“I didn’t  _ not  _ miss you,” he says, hoping he’s concealing any inexplicable weirdness. 

“Aw, Zach,” Willy coos, not quite teasing. There’s a pause, and Zach hears shuffling and the ruffling of sheets, tinny and muffled through the phone. “I’ll be back in a week. Six days, if we’re being exact.” 

“Six days,” Zach echoes, a little breathless. 

This is so fucking stupid. He should just tell Willy he misses him, and not bury it in double negatives, and then Willy will say he misses Zach too. It’s not an unreasonable thing, missing each other. Zach can hear it in Willy’s voice, read it between the lines in his texts, see it in the background of every dumb snap he sends. 

“Think you can hold off that long?” Willy’s trying to sound light, doesn’t quite manage it, and Zach hears  _ I miss you  _ in that, too. 

“I’ll manage,” Zach says. “I should, um, go— I, um. I really am sorry for waking you up.” 

“S’okay,” Willy says. “You’re more fun than my alarm.” 

“That might just mean you should get a better alarm,” Zach says. 

“I’ll look into it,” Willy says, laughing a little. “Well, if you do end up wanting phone sex later, I might be busy, but I am gonna take a long, steamy shower, so—” 

“Thanks for the heads up,” Zach says quickly, and Willy laughs, because of course he can tell that Zach is blushing all the way from Sweden. 

“Have a nice night, Zach,” Willy says. 

“Have a nice day, Will,” Zach says. “Bye.” 

“So long.” 

It catches Zach off-guard when Willy actually hangs up then, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but he feels himself still lingering in the phone call, in the minutes he’d spent with Willy in his ear. 

Six days from now has never felt this far away. 

He’s happy, even if he can feel an emptiness gnawing at him, and it takes him a few minutes to catch his breath. 

He’s not sure what this is, but whatever it is, it’s so much, but it’s not bad, not even in the slightest. Hope swirls in his chest, growing, pushing at his skin, and he feels like doing something reckless and stupid, like calling Willy back right now, or buying a ticket to Sweden, or— 

Something. He’s not sure. 

In the end, all he does is tell himself to get a grip, half-hearted even in his own head. 

He goes back inside, slides back into his seat, and rejoins the conversation like nothing’s changed at all.

…… 

(Willy thinks about Zach a lot, when he’s in Sweden. 

He thinks about him in the shower, when he’s getting dressed, when he’s jerking off, when he sees the corner of the book that’s lived here ever since Willy forwarded it in the mail as soon as Zach gave it to him. 

He thinks about him when he goes out, and when he lets guys buy him drinks. 

He thinks about him when he doesn’t kiss them. 

He thinks about it when his friends ask him,  _ so, you’re into guys now?  _ and he brushes them off, pretending he’s not as terrified as he is. 

He thinks about him when his parents ask him if he’s met a nice girl, and his breath shakes as he finally says,  _ I’m looking for a nice boy instead,  _ the way he’s always imagined it. 

He thinks about him when he remembers the plans he’d made for this summer, crafted in a low voice and dreamy, vague detail late at night with Auston, and he thinks about the ways they’ve been derailed, and how he doesn’t really mind all of it. 

He thinks about him when Alex asks if he has a boyfriend, and Willy hesitates for a second, without really meaning to. 

He thinks about him when he says he doesn’t, and he’s not sure if it feels like the truth or not.)

…… 

The next six days of Zach’s life pass at a really weird pace. 

He’s not exactly counting down the moment of Willy’s return to the second, but he wants to talk to him pretty much all the time, so much so that his fingers are itching at his phone, and every time he sees something that could be remotely used as an excuse to talk to him he practically jumps on it. 

A part of him wonders what his past self would think about him looking for excuses to talk to William Nylander, of all people, but most of him doesn’t dwell on it. Past Zach didn’t like Willy. Past Zach thought Willy was annoying. Past Zach was an idiot. 

The night before Willy’s set to return home, Zach spends about four hours cleaning his room, on and off. His room isn’t even particularly messy to begin with, but he manages to refold his entire wardrobe twice and change his sheets no fewer than seven times, just because the fitted sheet seems off. He’s pretty sure Willy couldn’t give less of a shit about the quality of his fitted sheet application, but then again, he’s pretending that none of this has anything to do with Willy, so. 

Basically, Zach’s not sure what he’s coping with, but whatever it is, he’s clearly coping with it. Coping well, even, under a very loose definition of the word ‘well’.

It’s not like there’s any guarantee that Zach’s even going to see Willy the day he gets home. Willy’s got time zones to deal with and other people to see, and Zach’s only real claim on Willy’s time is the fact that they’re having sex.

So this shouldn’t matter, but it doesn’t stop Zach from feeling antsy as fuck, and from jumping every time he gets a text before deflating when he sees that it’s not from Willy. 

In the end, Zach goes to bed with no definitive communication or plan to meet up. Which makes sense, because it’s not like they’re the kind of important to each other where they would be making those kinds of plans, but still. 

It doesn’t sit well with Zach, but he manages to fall asleep. 

…… 

Thankfully, Zach checks his phone before he’s awake enough to overthink things the next morning, and when he sees that Willy posted a  _ next stop YYZ  _ story on Snapchat, he responds asking what time his plane lands. 

Of course, by the time Willy lets him know, Zach’s neuroses are in full force, so he figures out which flight he’s on, which includes some guessing at the airline based on the color of the leather aircraft seat upholstery and the wing of the aircraft in the photo. It’s very much unnecessary, but Zach blames it on the fact that he’s been rewatching Veronica Mars, which brings out his investigative spirit or something, and tracks the flight from his phone. 

He almost misses the follow-up,  _ ill text you when im back and you can come over and help me unpack?  _

His hands shake as he types out,  _ can’t you unpack on your own?  _

_ ur better at foldingggg,  _ Willy replies. 

It’s stupid, because Willy has no clue whether or not Zach is good at folding shirts, he’s pretty sure, and because Zach isn’t sure if folding shirts is the kind of thing something can be good at, and because there’s no way Willy’s gonna unpack tonight. It’s an excuse, and it’s a dumb one at that, but it’s making Zach smile because it’s  _ Willy.  _

_ guess i gotta,  _ Zach sends back, and it’s not a big deal, but it’s also— 

It’s not nothing, the fact that they’re both this amped up to see each other. 

It’s flirting, the way they’re texting right now. 

And it’s all— it’s a lot, the whole thing, and there’s this low buzz under Zach’s skin that doesn’t go away for the rest of the morning. 

He feels like a ghost for most of it, passing through the day floating two inches off the ground. He knows he drives to the gym, and that he talks to people about things, but he’d be hard-pressed to remember anything about those conversations. 

The air doesn’t really start to fill up his lungs normally again until he’s working out, and that’s only because he has to devote a little brain power to concentrated breathing, which interrupts the giant ticker in his head that has  _ WILLYWILLYWILLY  _ running through his head and watermarking his field of vision. It’s the closest thing he gets to focus all day.

The thing is, Zach has no reason to feel sick to his stomach right now. He’s getting laid, for the first time in forever, and he knows Willy’s good. Things with Willy are always good, always hot and frantic and intense, and they leave Zach feeling centered, sure, certain. 

But Zach doesn’t feel any of those things right now. 

He still wants Willy, though. 

“Dude,” Brownie says, and Zach startles. “What the fuck.” 

“Jesus, give a guy some warning,” Zach says. 

Brownie gives him a weird look. “I’ve been trying to get your attention for, like, five minutes,” Brownie says. “What’s with you today, man?” 

“Nothing,” Zach says, a little too fast. 

Brownie eyes him skeptically, but says nothing. 

“What?” Zach says. “Nothing’s up.” 

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re an awful liar?” 

“Fuck you, I’m an amazing liar,” Zach says. “And I’m not lying. Shut up.” 

“You don’t have to tell me, dude,” Brownie says, putting his hands up defensively. “I’m just saying, you’re acting freaky.”

“Maybe I’m just a freak,” Zach says, even though that doesn’t really make any sense at all. 

“Whatever.” 

Zach can’t even bring himself to worry or care at all, just feels tingling at the very tips of his fingers, poised to grab his phone from his pocket the second it buzzes with the news that Willy’s back.

The rest of the day happens, Zach’s pretty sure; he doesn’t have anything to do, so all he really has to manage in the weird haze of anticipation is normal human stuff, like eating food and not dying. 

He manages well enough. 

It’s almost anticlimactic when Willy texts Zach and tells him to come over like everything’s normal, but Zach’s breath kind of catches at the message, and he has to actually stop and tell himself to take deep breaths before he gets in the car. He’s okay to drive, but it’s a little bit of a miracle that he is; the whole world is muted and warped, and the only thing that’s clear right now is the path to Willy. 

The text itself had been innocuous and casual enough, but still, Zach isn’t all that surprised when Willy opens the door and stares at him, wide-eyed and terrified. It’s not a bad kind of scared, because Zach knows the way different types of fear look on Willy’s face. This is the kind of scared that happens any time you see someone you haven’t seen in a while— the way they look both the same and different, the way their hair is always a little longer than you expect it to be, the way it’s hard to look at them but once you do, you can’t look away. 

Willy, for his part, looks good; Zach wonders if he’d been more exhausted than he’d let on before, or if he’s just supremely well-rested now. He’s sun-kissed and tan, not a speck of sunburn in sight, which Zach thinks is pretty impressive— Willy’s skin is pretty sensitive, Zach knows from the weeks he’s spent sucking easy bruises into it, marking it up with the lightest presses of his fingertips into his skin. 

Maybe Willy’s got really good sunscreen. Zach is gonna have to ask about it. 

“Hi,” Willy says, totally entranced in a way that would be overwhelming if Zach weren’t already completely overwhelmed by the same fucking feeling. 

“Hey,” Zach says, and it’s fucking bizarre, the way they’re just staring at each other. There’s a heaviness that shouldn’t be there, Zach thinks, except he knows he’s responsible for it every bit as much as Willy, and it’s because they’re together, and Willy just stepped off a plane, and Zach has been denying that he’s missed Willy since the second he left, but now that he’s back— 

“Fuck,” Willy says, leaning in at the same time Zach does, and when their lips meet, Zach feels the same wound he’s spent weeks trying to repair rip open, like Willy’s under his skin in all the places Zach wishes he didn’t want him to be. 

It’s good, and it hurts, and above all, it feels like coming home, and that’s the thing that puts abject terror in the pit of Zach’s stomach; the fact that he and Willy are a  _ they,  _ a  _ we,  _ a thing that makes sense and feels right in his life in a way he was never supposed to. 

Once upon a time, in a dark alley behind the last club on Earth where Zach would expect to find William Nylander, Willy had kissed Zach like he hated him, and Zach had kissed back just like that. It had been fierce and angry and full of words they couldn’t say, but now the words are there, and heat is gone, and they’re kissing like they’re drawn to each other, like they miss each other. 

It’s not new, is the thing, but Zach hadn’t noticed it before Willy left. It isn’t what Zach told himself this would be at the start, and it hasn’t been for a while, and Zach has been so pointedly ignoring it  but all of a sudden he  _ can’t,  _ because Willy is here and Zach can’t get enough of him. He wants more of William Nylander than he can imagine, and certainly more than he can ask for, but that’s not stopping him from  _ wanting.  _

Willy groans against Zach’s mouth, like he can feel himself taking Zach apart and is deciding to fall alongside him, or maybe he doesn’t even know what he’s doing besides deciding to jump anyway. 

“You—” Zach says, and then he swallows the words, because he doesn’t have the fucking vocabulary for whatever it is he’s feeling. It would take paragraphs, pages, filled-up journals and whole novels, and he still wouldn’t be able to describe whatever he’s feeling right now, besides torn apart, falling and caught, like he’s standing at the edge of a cliff and all he can focus on his the beautiful view in front of him. 

“Can we—” Willy shudders as Zach presses his mouth to his neck. “Fuck, I don’t know, anything.” 

“God, yeah,” Zach says, already directing them into the apartment, belatedly remembering to close the door behind them. He’s pretty sure none of Willy’s neighbors had ventured out into the hallway, but if they had, Zach’s not even sure he would’ve noticed. It’s like Willy is all-consuming, and Zach can’t spare an ounce of thought on anything else. 

This isn’t about thinking, though. Zach’s pretty sure he’s not thinking at all, because if he were, he would probably put a stop to this, because as good as everything feels, he knows it’s dangerous. 

But it’s too tempting.  _ Willy’s _ too tempting, too beautiful, too much to explore, too many buttons that Zach needs to press, and so he keeps pushing them until they’re in Willy’s bedroom, a flurry of clothes being taken off like the fabric burns to touch, skin pressed against skin impossibly close and begging to be closer, hands clawing at shoulders and hair like there’s something at stake if they don’t tear each other apart right this second. 

The fact that they’re hard is practically an afterthought. Zach wants to get Willy off—needs to get Willy off, really—but he’s barely paying attention to his dick, just goes by feeling and focuses his eyes on Willy’s face, patchy and red already after only minutes. His eyes are half-lidded and his breath is strained, and it feels like Willy’s not holding back, like they’re past the point of Zach having to pry him open slowly. He’s just— he’s like this, shaky inelegant breaths and jerky movements, and Zach doesn’t know why the fuck he’s spent so long pretending he doesn’t want to look at it, because this is what he’s always wanted— to see Willy desperate like this, to see the fragile person underneath the beautiful shell, to know that he’s still beautiful when he doesn’t care who’s looking. 

It’s like seeing all of him at once, and Zach has to bite back so many words that he can’t even hear in his head. 

Zach comes first, isn’t even aware enough of his own body to be surprised. It feels like every feeling he’s got has been replaced by unmediated desperation, and he’s just, like, thrusting against Willy’s abs as he straddles him, jerking him off in ways that make his face twist and contort, and he barely manages to gasp out a warning before he’s coming all over him, and it’s not long before Willy follows suit with a strangled cry, his hand wrapped around Zach’s and covered with Zach’s come, like the strength of the wake of Zach’s orgasm had been enough to finish him off. 

Zach’s not sure about reality, or the passage of time, or anything like that right now, but he’s pretty sure he’d been knocking on Willy’s door a few minutes ago. 

“Oh my god,” Willy says, mostly an exhale, and without really thinking about it, Zach kisses him again, slow and lazy and easy, because if he doesn’t, he’s probably going to do something stupid, like smile. 

He finds his breath in Willy’s mouth, and it should all feel too close and sticky, but the confines of Willy’s bed feel infinite right now. He knows that, eventually, his brain is going to catch up with his body and his heart, but he’s trying to put that off; he’s pretty sure it will stop feeling good once he starts thinking, and this is a feeling Zach wants to hold on to for as long as possible. 

Eventually, though, Willy pulls away, letting his head flop back on the pillow as he looks up at Zach, and the corners of his mouth quirk upward in this tiny, honest smile. He runs a thumb along Zach’s forehead, like he’d be brushing away a lock of hair if Zach’s hair was long enough, and there’s a loud, booming feeling in Zach’s chest. 

He can’t tell if it feels empty or the fullest it’s ever felt, but whatever the feeling is, he knows Willy put it there. 

“We should probably clean up,” Willy says, after a few seconds of the two of them lying there staring at each other, and Zach would normally be saying something right now, but there’s no room for words in his throat. 

Instead, he goes into the bathroom, grabs a wet washcloth, and comes back to find Willy in the exact same place he left him. 

“Are you gonna fall asleep?” Zach says, hoping his voice sounds relatively normal. 

“Shouldn’t,” Willy says, yawning. “It’s bad for jet lag.” 

“Do you want me to, like, try and keep you awake?” 

“Eh,” Willy says. “Dunno how successful you’ll be.” 

“We can achieve anything we set our minds to,” Zach says, kind of wry. 

Willy chuckles, low and sleepy. “You can, maybe.” 

“Shut up,” Zach says, blushing, and even though Willy’s eyes are closed, he grins like he can tell what Zach’s face looks like anyway. 

Zach doesn’t know when things with Willy turned into this, and he wishes it was scary enough to not give him hope, but it teeters dangerously on the edge of that, like a star growing rapidly brighter before collapsing in on itself. 

There’s never been a light like the one Zach feels in his chest right now, he’s pretty sure. 

He wishes he could freeze time, just for this moment, to hold onto this feeling. 

Zach cleans Willy up, gentle and slow and thorough, and by the time he’s done, Willy’s asleep, and it feels like there’s a cave in Zach’s chest. Every dangerous decision he’s made this summer is slowly trickling in from his memory, and Zach’s brain goes numb with it, with the feelings he wished he didn’t feel, the choices he wishes he’d made, the regret that’s starting to tinge every happy memory he’s got. 

It happens fast, but not quite all at once, more like a harsh fade-in of things he’d been holding back, and he lets it flood over him, feels its weight for a long moment. 

Then, he takes a deep breath, looks at Willy, and lets things fall apart as he pulls a blanket over him, gets up, and leaves. 

……

Zach doesn’t avoid Willy, for the record. 

It’s just— things get busy, like all the free time he found himself with when Willy was away is catching up to him now. The guys are arriving back in town, and that means Zach’s catching up with someone different every night, and people who were only back for the summer are leaving, which takes up time as well.  

It doesn’t exactly help that thinking about Willy makes his chest feel tight and his breathing all short.

Maybe Zach should sort this shit out, but it’s just— it’s so easy, with excuses presenting themselves left and right, and it’s not like Willy is exactly blowing up his phone, so. 

He’s gotten really good at lying to himself this summer, he’s discovered, and he figures now’s as good a time as any to put that new skill to use. It’s not like he and Willy really cross paths that much naturally, and right now, they’re not seeking each other out either. He tells himself that this is a natural end to things, that it’s not like things were gonna last between them anyway, that if they keep going now, people will start to notice, and that they’d never be able to explain it. 

He tells himself a lot of bullshit, and lets himself believe every word, and doesn’t talk to Willy. 

…… 

Somewhere along the way, Zach had forgotten that it’s hard to not-avoid-but-avoid the guy you don’t like but have spent the summer having sex with when that guy is your teammate, because eventually, proximity gets forced, and before you know it your other teammate is talking about how everyone is going out for drinks that night as a sort of reunion thing.

“So, a reunion,” Zach says flatly, and Brownie rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah, well, Mitchy wanted to see Matts, and he’s trying to be lowkey about it,” Brownie says. “So it’s you, me, Mo, Naz, Will—”

“What?” Zach says, and Brownie is still listing names like it’s not just the entire roster, and Zach had known that, is the thing, but—

It’s Willy,  _ his  _ Willy, and Zach had almost forgotten that there’s a version of him that interacts with the rest of his life. 

He feels like he’s seen a ghost, and he’s just— he’s not ready for this. 

“Dude,” Brownie says, looking at Zach like he’s grown a second head, and Zach can’t even pretend he’s feeling anything close to normal.

“Sorry, I’ve gotta—” he doesn't even know where he’s going with it, just that he has to get out of here and learn how to breathe again, or something. 

“Okay, no,” Brownie says. “Sit down.”

“Wh—”

“Sit,” Brownie repeats, firm, and Zach’s not really able to do anything but listen. “You’ve been acting weird for weeks, and I’ve tried to be nice about it, but you’re— this is next level.”

“I’m sorry,” Zach says, kind of helpless. 

“I just— what’s going on?” Brownie says. “Is there something I missed, or— what?”

“It’s— it’s been a weird summer,” Zach says.

“How weird is weird?” Brownie asks, and the thing is— 

Zach’s been fucked up about this for weeks. He’s been fucking this up for weeks. He’s— he’s fucking tired, is what it is, and he’s sick of all the fucking secrecy. 

He takes a breath. “You can’t tell anyone,” he says. “Okay? No one.” 

“Alright,” Brownie says.

Zach shifts back and forth in his seat a bit, then bites his lip and says, “I’ve sort of been… hooking up with Willy.” 

Brownie blinks at him. “You— what?” 

“Yeah,” Zach says. 

“I— you,” Brownie says. “You’ve been hooking up— do I need to get my ears checked?” 

“You’ve heard every word right so far,” Zach says. 

“Willy,” Brownie says. “Like, William Nylander, that Willy.”

“That’s the one, yep.” 

“Our teammate, Willy.” 

“The one and only.” 

“You— he— I thought you didn’t like him.” 

“I don’t,” Zach says. “Or, I didn’t, at least.” 

“Do you now, though?” 

“Do I what?” 

“Like him?” 

And that’s the question Zach doesn’t want to think about, because the answer is almost painfully obvious, written plain as day right there on his face every time he so much as thinks about Willy. 

“At the start, it was just— I don’t know,” Zach says. “He just kissed me, and I think we hated each other, but then— it kept happening, and we just… stopped hating each other? I guess?” 

“You guess,” Brownie echoes, and Zach can tell he’s trying very hard to not roll his eyes. 

“It’s just been weird lately, so—”

“What, did you, like, break up or something?” Brownie asks. 

“No,” Zach says quickly. “No, it wasn’t like that.”

“Cut that crap,” Brownie says. “I don’t care about labels, or whatever— the thing that you had, with Willy—”

“Wasn’t a thing,” Zach mumbles. 

“Whatever,” Brownie says, and this time he doesn’t refrain from rolling his eyes. “It ended, though?”

“I—” Zach gulps. “Yeah, I think so.”

“You think so?”

“We haven’t talked in a while,” Zach admits, and his stomach is doing something awful right now. “So. I think so.”

“Have you— or, I don’t— just, why?” Brownie doesn’t sound accusing, but the words land so heavy and sharp that Zach has to close his eyes. 

“I left,” Zach says, his voice softer than he’d like. “So, I mean, it’s sort of— it’s complicated.”

“You left,” Brownie echoes. “You mean, after—”

“Fuck, it’s not— I know it doesn’t sound good, but it’s complicated, okay?”

“Hey,” Brownie says. “I’m not judging, man.”

He should judge him. Zach deserves to be judged. Zach left Willy jet-lagged and confused in his bed, didn’t even bother with a note or a text or anything, and even if they still hated each other, or were still pretending to hate each other, that would just be mean. That’s not something anyone deserves, let alone someone Zach has weird, complicated, intense, but  _ real _ feelings for. 

Brownie doesn’t know that part, though. 

“Look, just— show up tonight, see how it goes, because I know you don’t want to cause drama,” Brownie continues. “Maybe he doesn’t want it getting out and turning into a whole big thing.”

He probably doesn’t. Willy would rather die than be embarrassed in front of other people. Willy is shit at rejection and doesn’t know how to be vulnerable unless it’s in bursts. 

“You’re right,” Zach says. “I’m just overthinking, sorry—”

“It’ll be fine,” Brownie says, trying to sound reassuring. 

It doesn’t work, because Zach knows Brownie doesn’t know the half of it.

He musters up a smile anyway. 

“Alright,” he says. “Thanks.”

Brownie grins, like everything actually will be okay, and Zach wishes any part of him could believe it.

…… 

Zach feels sick to his stomach as he makes his way into the bar, and for the entire half hour he spends making small talk before Willy shows up. 

A part of him wants to text Willy, which is, far and away, the worst idea he’s ever had. It’s a worse idea than hooking up with him in the first place, maybe. A worse idea than leaving while he was asleep. 

The thing is, they were never really anything, besides not-friends. At most, they were teammates with benefits who didn’t really like each other, but had to do something with the excess of knowledge about each other they carried around. But it wasn’t even that, because they never talked, never put a word to it, never existed as a pair of people outside the weird bubble of sex and anger they built for themselves. 

None of that explains why Zach feels like he’s the one facing someone who broke him inside, when he’s really just a guy with some apologizing to do. 

Either way, he knows the second Willy walks into the bar, hones in on him as soon as he sets foot through the door. 

His palms are sweating. His head is buzzing. His heart has stopped, or it’s beating too fast— one of the two, and he can’t fucking tell which it is, just feels like he’s left his body and is frozen in place, a slave to whatever circumstance William Nylander may bring. 

They lock eyes, and Zach’s pretty sure the world stops turning, and there’s no blue as bright as Willy’s eyes. It’s like the saturation on the moment has been turned up, and the parts that aren’t Willy blur. It would be like the weird real-life equivalent to portrait mode, except for the fact that this isn’t the William Nylander that gets photographed. This is Willy caught off-guard, Willy exposed, Willy frozen in time and on the brink of action.

The moment breaks when Willy quirks a smile and gives him an easy nod. Zach’s pretty sure that’s Earth’s cue to start rotating again, but it feels a little slower, like it’s going through molasses. 

Or maybe, based on the way Willy quickly slides into a conversation with the nearest person to him, it’s just Zach who’s still feeling a bit sticky.

They don’t actually talk to each other. Zach doesn’t know if he thought they would; it’s not like they have any catching up to do, and it’s not exactly weird for them to not be talking in the presence of their teammates. They don’t even have to try too hard to stay out of the same conversations, just… do. It’s like they’ve traveled back in time, to when Willy was a mystery and Zach didn’t know how to be around him. Zach feels the same way he did the first time he left home for the summer and came back to find that everything felt the same and terrifyingly different, like there were too many small changes and he didn’t quite fit there, anymore. 

Right now, he’s just pretending to be the Zach who doesn’t talk to Willy, and it’s not easy, because the real Zach can’t keep his eyes off of him. 

Brownie knows enough to know that something’s up, so he graciously positions himself between the two of them, which he really doesn’t have to do, but eventually, he has to sneak off to the bathroom, and Mitch is somewhere talking with Naz and Kappy, and everyone else is off somewhere leaving Zach alone at the same time Willy’s at the bar. 

He’s leaning over, ignoring the stools right there in favor of sticking his ass out, which is a move Zach recognizes, and he’d roll his eyes if it wasn’t 100% working on him. He’s pretty sure everyone else in the room is staring, too, and he’s kind of impressed that Willy managed to make standing into something obscene, though he’s not all that surprised. 

Willy runs a hand through his hair, which is still long, and he’s got the beginnings of a beard going now too. Zach’s not sure if it’s good or bad, but it’s different, and that makes him weirdly sad. 

This whole fucking night is weirdly sad, is the thing, and now Willy’s standing here, leaning over the bar like  _ that  _ and batting his eyelashes, and Zach wonders how long it takes him to order a fucking drink, because it looks like they’re just standing there talking— 

That’s when Zach realizes that Willy’s flirting with the bartender, and suddenly, all he can see is red.

It’s not fucking fair. It’s not fair that Willy has to be like this, so easy and open with this kind of surface-level affection, but still manages to keep the real stuff—the stuff that sticks, the stuff that connects—buried deep down. It’s not fair that he got Zach to dig for it, and it’s not fair that he let Zach start to unearth it, made him develop all these stupid feelings for him that he’s not gonna reciprocate, because Willy feels things strong and fast. He can go from making Zach’s world stop to flirting with someone else like Zach’s not even in the fucking room in a matter of weeks, and it makes Zach feel small and helpless and all the other shitty things that Willy’s always made him feel. 

And maybe the least fair part of it is that he makes Zach feel so fucking good sometimes too, so powerful, like he could actually be good for someone else not because he’s a gentleman, or an athlete, or an author, but just because he’s Zach. He makes Zach feel like the worst parts of him are worth something, then turns around and takes that away with a snap of his fingers and a flutter of his eyelashes. 

Nothing is fair, and Zach is angry in a way he hasn’t been since June, and he knows it’s the worst idea in the world when he slides up next to Willy at the bar and flashes the bartender a thin, threatening smile as he presses his arm into Willy’s, but he can’t fucking help it. Willy brings this out in him, the worst and pettiest parts, and if he’s gonna have to confront this shit, he’s dragging Willy down with him.

He shouldn’t be gratified when he feels Willy tense up next to him, but he kind of is, anyway. 

“Wanna go somewhere and talk?” Zach says, almost sugary-sweet. He doesn’t even recognize his own voice.

“Uh,” Willy says. “Are you sure you want to?” 

“Very,” Zach says. 

Willy looks at him, anything beyond caution in his expression unreadable, but then he nods slowly, something awful and amazing flickering behind his eyes. Zach hopes it’s anger. 

“I might be back,” Willy says, flashing the bartender a smile that has Zach digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands. “Outside?” 

“It is a nice night,” Zach says, and he knows that in a few seconds this is gonna feel like the worst idea in the world, but right now, there’s adrenaline pumping through him, and the feeling of not being frozen with dread over Willy for the first time in weeks is enough. 

It’s not actually a nice night. The sidewalk is dark with rain, and even though it’s a light drizzle now, it had been pouring earlier, and there’s still water dripping from the awning, landing in huge, heavy drops on Zach’s forehead as they make their way outside and walk a few doors down into the nightlife-adjacent shadows. 

“So,” Willy says, leaning against a storefront. There’s a ‘Sorry, we’re closed!’ sign hanging right next to his elbow; Zach’s pretty sure that if the scene in front of him was something out of a book, he’d say the symbolism was heavy-handed.  

“What were you doing in there?” Zach says, and his voice doesn’t quiver, but it’s a near-thing. 

“What do you mean?” Willy is barely even trying to sound convincing. Zach fucking  _ hates  _ him, and his stupid emotional walls and his stupid face and his stupid wonderful heart that he doesn’t let anyone fucking see.

“At the bar,” Zach says, grasping at some thin hope that if he shows Willy he’s not treating this like a game, Willy will stop playing. “What was that, Will?”

“It was just a conversation, don’t be so jealous, Zachy,” Willy says, and it’s like the person Zach has known all summer is gone, brushed away in favor of being someone too cool to care about other people in public. 

It’s not Willy, not the guy Zach’s spent a summer falling for, and Zach refuses to believe that he made up the real Willy in his head. He’s done feeling stupid for believing that some part of Willy lets people in; Willy is smarter than he thinks he is, smarter than he’ll let most people believe, and everything he does is intentional, because it’s easier to stop worrying about what people think of you when you give them the version of yourself you can predict their reaction to. That’s something they’ve always had in common; different means, but the same end. 

Recognizing it doesn’t make it any easier to not get just as mad as Willy wants him to be, though.

“Don’t call me Zachy,” he says through gritted teeth. “Most of my conversations don’t involve giving a bartender fuck-me eyes.” It’s an old, low blow, and it doesn’t sound right anymore, but it’s all Zach has right now. 

“Well, that’s why you don’t get free drinks as much as I do,” Willy says. “What’s the big deal? I’m allowed to flirt with other people.”

“You don’t have to do it in front of everyone,” Zach says. “Like, live your life, but if you’re gonna call me later because you struck out with someone else, I’d prefer not to know it.”

“I talk to one guy for ten minutes and all of a sudden I’m the asshole who made you into a backup plan?” Willy says. “Wow, that’s really fair, Zach.”

“Tell me you weren’t planning on calling me later because you couldn’t find a better dick to suck,” Zach says, which isn’t anywhere near the truth, but  _ fuck _ . “Look me in the eye and tell me that.”

It lands exactly how Zach wants it to, and it doesn’t feel anywhere close to good to see Willy’s face shift between this many different shades of hurt.

“I’m sorry, are we calling each other again?” Willy says, laughing almost incredulously, and there’s so much pain in the words that it takes Zach a second to register them, but he feels them in his gut, muddling through the humidity and settling somewhere deep in his stomach. 

He feels like he’s gonna be sick; he doesn’t know what to say, he really doesn’t. All he knows is that seeing Willy pretend to laugh at some random bartender’s jokes feels like a punch to the chest, and he maybe shouldn’t have started down this path, but it’s the one they’re on, fucking up this thing that’s already fucked to hell and back. 

“You were doing that to piss me off,” Zach says, desperate to go back to being mad. He misses being mad, right now. He’d give anything to be mad.

“I was doing it because I was talking to a person,” Willy says. “Because some people like to talk to me even when they’re not fucking me, believe it or not.” 

“That’s not—” 

“So the thing is, I don’t care what you have to say right now, because regardless of why I was having an innocent conversation with a stranger, I’m mostly just confused about what makes you think you have any right at  _ all _ to be angry with me, because last I checked, you’re the one who left while I was sleeping and didn’t even fucking text or anything,” Willy says. “Call me crazy, but I feel like sleeping with someone for a summer then doing that is just—” he pinches his forefinger and thumb. “Like, just the  _ slightest  _ bit rude. So maybe, like, explain yourself? Because really, what the  _ fuck, _ Zach.” 

“I— it wasn’t— it’s not like you called me,” Zach says, floundering. Guilt is starting to rise in his throat, threatening to seep into his voice.

“Are you  _ serious _ ,” Willy says, in a flat, angry voice. “Listen, I know you don’t think I have any self respect, but I’m not exactly jumping at the opportunity to beg someone to use me for sex then treat me like crap.” 

“I didn’t use you for sex,” Zach says. “You know it wasn’t— it isn’t like that.” 

“I thought so, but then you did that, so who really knows,” Willy says. “It looked like you were about to start almost caring about me, for a second there, but I guess that was just me being naive.” 

“It wasn’t— god, Will,” Zach says, his voice breaking, and he can feel his heart reaching out for Willy desperately, wanting to tell him that he does care, almost too much, and that it’s terrifying, because he doesn’t trust himself to be okay with caring about someone who feels as big and complicated and messy and beautiful as William Nylander. 

“Shut up,” Willy says. “Shut up, don’t call me that— fuck, don’t call me  _ anything.  _ Stop talking to me.” 

“No, I—” 

“You blew me off, so I told myself that it was because I was being dumb, and it didn’t actually matter to you, and I was fine with that, okay?” Willy says. “So if you’re gonna tell me that you knew— that you chose to—” 

It’s easier to lose something when you tell yourself you’ve never had it in the first place, but the problem is, Zach is so past the point of being able to rationalize this into a not-thing. 

“I’m sorry,” Zach says. “I’m sorry, I— I’ve been an asshole.” 

“I don’t want this,” Willy says. “Shut up, shut  _ up.”  _

“It just— it got complicated.” 

Willy laughs, mad and incredulous. “It’s always been complicated, and we’ve always just pretended it’s not, but— you don’t like me, Zach. You just— you don’t. Okay?”

“Stop saying that,” Zach says. 

“No, I’m done feeling like crap because you can’t wrap your head around the fact that you’re a judgmental dick who hates someone for no reason and needs to get the fuck over himself,” Willy says. 

“I don’t hate you,” Zach says, belated and weak and not enough, not even close. Willy looks sad and broken and desperate to act like nothing matters, and this is what Zach’s always wanted— to make Willy wear his heart on his sleeve when it mattered, to hear him say he’s scared or angry or any other bad feeling he wanted to shut out. 

Zach’s never really thought about the fact that he wants to help Willy shut those out while letting Zach in, and right now, there are so many feelings loose in this room, bouncing off the walls, making Willy grow with fury as Zach feels smaller by the second. 

“Fine, you may not hate me,” Willy says, practically spitting. “Doesn’t exactly mean you like me, either.” 

“Will—”

“No. Just— just stop,” Willy says, and then he turns on his heel and walks away, leaving Zach alone to sit with his regrets.

…… 

(Kappy grabs the phone from Willy’s hands. 

“No,” he says sternly. 

“But—” 

“I don’t know what’s wrong, but tell me, Ben, or Jerry,” Kappy says. “Not Zach.” 

“Zach,” Willy echoes, sad and drunk and desperate to do something stupid. 

“No,” Kappy says. “No Zach. I’m going to get you a trash can and some water, and then I’m gonna play with your hair until you feel better, alright, dickhead?” 

It’s the smart choice to make, and it makes Willy feel loved in a way he can’t imagine deserving, right now. 

But he agrees anyway. 

He hopes Zach sleeps like shit.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Zach wakes up weirdly alert, despite the fact that he’s running on a literal hour and a half of sleep. 

He’s pretty sure he’s the worst person in the world. 

Willy’s not okay, and he doesn’t have any reason to be. Zach fucked him up. Zach was awful to him, so awful that he’s not even worried about Willy forgiving him, just wants him to feel better.  

Zach’s spent way too much of his energy this summer on being self-righteous about his own nice guy-ness; right now, he just misses being nice. He likes making people feel good, especially likes making Willy feel good, but he’d fucked that up by being stubborn and judgmental and making every wrong, hurtful, selfish choice. 

Maybe Willy’s kind of rude sometimes, but even if Zach added up the small slights and inconsideracies, it wouldn’t even come close to adding up to what Zach’s put him through. It’s not even a numbers game to begin with, honestly. 

Deep down, Zach might be a nice person, but right now, he feels like a fraud with a martyr complex. 

The sky is ugly, he can see through the window, and the floor of his apartment is cold. He feels like a shell of a person as he shuffles around and gets an early start to his morning. There’s no sunrise to enjoy, just gray and probably too much dew, but Zach suspects that even if it were sunny, he wouldn’t feel great. He hurt Willy a lot; that’s something that weighs on him, something he needs to shake so he can get to work fixing things. Guilt is something he can deal with on his own time, and right now, his place is staggeringly empty, so he’s got the space for it. 

Or at least, he does until the doorbell rings, at which point he almost drops a full mug of coffee, 

It’s disgustingly early, and Zach has no idea who it could possibly be, so he both is and isn’t surprised when he opens the door and Willy’s on the other side.

He doesn’t really know what to do, so he just steps aside and lets Willy in, wordlessly takes in his dishevelled form, the way his steps seem heavy and the bags under his eyes weigh down his face. It’s not as bad as it could be, at least— Willy’s eyes are red, but he doesn’t look drunk. He’s hungover, possibly, but he doesn’t look like he’s been out all night. He doesn’t look great, but he looks like he’s gotten a few hours of fitful, drunken sleep, probably more than Zach did, and he’s wearing what look like relatively clean clothes that definitely belong to him, which means he got home safely last night, at least. 

Zach’s heart still kind of aches to see him like this. He watches Willy slowly toe off his shoes, and that just makes the pain in his chest feel sharper, hollower, just— worse.

“Hi,” Zach says, because the silence is too much.

Willy just looks at him for a second, his expression unwavering, but for the first time, his blank expression isn’t inscrutable. It’s just… plain, sad, angry, and above all, tired. 

“I liked you,” Willy says after a second, and the words sound easy but land hard in Zach’s chest. It’s not a confession, just a statement of fact, and an unfortunate one at that. 

“Oh,” Zach says, and he thinks about playing dumb for a second, but he’s tired too, confused and kind of desperate to get things out in the open. “When?” 

“Before.” 

He doesn’t elaborate, but Zach waits and waits, letting the silence between them grow as Willy stares down at his feet. 

“Before the beginning of the summer,” Willy finally says. “Back before I knew you hated me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“You did,” Willy says, and it’s not  _ true,  _ but Zach doesn’t know how to explain it, doesn’t know how to make Willy believe it. 

God, he fucked this up. 

“You didn’t read my book,” Zach says, for lack of anything better to say, and he regrets it on many different levels the second it’s out of his mouth. 

Willy wraps his arms around himself. “I have little sisters,” he says. “It seemed like something they’d like better. They think signed books are the coolest thing.” 

Zach feels a little like crying. “They sound like great kids.”

“They are,” Willy says. “I’m not here to talk about my family.” 

“Right—” 

“I liked you a lot, and then you hated me, and I was— that felt like crap.” 

“I didn’t hate you.” 

“You totally fucking did,” Willy says. “You’re nice to literally everyone but me.” 

“I’m nice to people who are nice to me,” Zach says, and it’s the wrong thing to say, and he knows it is because of the way Willy’s face turns to stone. “I’m sorry, that was—” 

“No, please tell me all the times I hung you out to dry because I thought you were too  _ annoying,”  _ Willy says, harsh, and he practically spits out the last word. 

And— oh. That’s what he’s afraid of. 

“You cut everyone but me some slack,” Willy continues. “You let Marns get all cuddly, and Auston get all mopey, and you let Brownie shit on everyone and let Mo treat us like babies, even though you’re older than him—” 

“I didn’t know it was—”  _ something you did because you were scared,  _ Zach finishes in his head, but he can’t say the words out loud, can only hope Willy hears them anyway. “You just seem so… sure of yourself.” 

“Oh my god, get  _ over  _ it,” Willy says. “Don’t fucking assume that just because I’m blonde, or whatever— like, holy fuck, you think I don’t know all the reasons people have for not liking me? Because I’m too much, and clingy, and needy—” 

“You’re not too much,” Zach says. 

“Fine, then I want too much,” Willy says. “From people, I mean.” 

“You’re allowed to want things.”

“I wasn’t asking for permission,” Willy snaps. “And— fuck, I don’t—” He throws his hands up in the air, helpless. “I need to see a therapist. Or, like, five therapists.” 

“One for every day of the week,” Zach jokes, but it doesn’t land right. It doesn’t exactly land wrong, either, just kind of… lands, flat and awkward and like nothing’s really funny. 

“You make me feel so scared,” Willy says. “And so— I feel like I’m trailing after you, sometimes, like this annoying, yappy little dog that you don’t want to be walking.” 

“I like dogs,” Zach says, kind of helpless, because it’s easier than  _ I like you.  _

Willy doesn’t hear the things Zach isn’t saying. “Anyway, I probably shouldn’t have fucked you, because you always kinda make me feel like shit about myself. Not during sex, I mean, but— in general.”

“No,” Zach says, his heart sinking to the bottom of his chest. “I don’t want you to feel like that.” 

“Well, join the fucking club,” Willy says, and Zach’s pretty sure his voice is wet. 

“I—” he gulps. “You’re so hard to read, usually.” 

“What’s that got to do with anything?” 

“Just— that’s why,” Zach says. “That’s why you— that’s what drove me fucking insane. I used to never be able to tell what you were thinking, you’re you—” He gestures up and down Willy’s body to indicate the abstract concept that used to be William Nylander, the adjective. 

“So that’s why you hated me?” Willy says. “Because you couldn’t know me better than I know myself?” 

“Because I couldn’t figure out what you were thinking half the time,” Zach says. “Because you didn’t let me.” 

“I would have.” 

“No,” Zach says. “No, you wouldn’t have. You’re— you never gave me a chance. You’re so fucking closed off, and then half the time I’d think we were getting somewhere, but then the walls were right back up.”

“I don’t owe you that.” 

“No, but friends share their feelings, sometimes,” Zach says. “You just smiled and hoped I didn’t notice that you never fucking said anything.” 

“Well— that’s just who I am,” Willy says. “Other people manage to like me.” 

“Other people aren’t me,” Zach says, and Willy recoils. 

“Fuck you,” Willy says, sharp and angry and hurt, which was not what Zach was going for. “Fuck you, I didn’t—” 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Zach says quickly. 

“Then how did you mean it?” 

“I just meant that it didn’t sit right with me at first,” Zach says. “I don’t— I get it now, I understand, but just— at first.” 

“What changed?” 

“I mean,” Zach shrugs. “You were— y’know.” 

“What, I let you fuck me?” 

“Don’t say it like that,” Zach says, because it hurts hearing Willy sound sad about it now. 

“Like what?” Willy says.

“Like it was just that,” Zach says. “It wasn’t— it’s not about the sex stuff.” 

“Bullshit, you didn’t give a shit about me until my tongue was down your throat.”

“No, that’s— my whole fucking problem was that I couldn’t  _ stop  _ caring, before,” Zach says, ignoring the fact that it’s also his whole fucking problem now, too. “I cared, and you didn’t seem like you had any serious interest in being friends—” 

“We’re teammates, we’re supposed to get along,” Willy says. 

“There’s a difference between getting along and being friends,” Zach insists. 

Willy doesn’t have anything to say to that, apparently, because he just looks at his feet again, and Zach just waits again. 

“It’s hard for me to be serious about shit,” Willy finally says. 

“I know,” Zach says. “You tried, though.” 

Willy nods. “Because I liked you. A lot.” 

“But— you do this thing, right, where you— you make yourself hard to read. On purpose. And you don’t seem to get how that hurts people.” 

“Oh, so now I was hurting you,” Willy says, sarcastic. “I was the one who tried to be nice—” 

“It felt like too little, too late,” Zach says. 

“What—”

“At the game,” Zach says. “It felt— fake, I guess, and like— I don’t know. It felt like you were just gonna make fun of me, or something—” 

“Have you ever thought that maybe the fact that you seem to think I’m a huge asshole all the time is, like, your problem, not mine?” 

“Yes,” Zach says, and he wants to scream, or pull his hair out, or something, but he knows he can’t do either. “I’m just trying to explain, jesus.” 

“You don’t have to explain why you hated me,” Willy says. 

“But that’s the thing,” Zach says. “I never hated you, I just—” 

“You just what?” 

“I don’t know,” Zach says, throwing his arms up. “I wanted more from you than you were willing to give, I guess, and that drove me fucking crazy—” 

“What the fuck,” Willy says, flat and a little harsh. “What the fuck does that even mean, you wanted more from me.” 

“Like— I wanted you to be honest,” Zach says. “And open, and not— I don’t know. You didn’t give me a chance to get to know you, really.” 

“You wanted to?” 

“Of course,” Zach says, and he wants to reach out to do something stupid, like cup Willy’s cheek in his hand, but he doesn’t. “Fucking— of  _ course  _ I wanted to.”

“You mostly just seemed annoyed,” Willy says. 

Zach’s head is going a thousand miles a minute, and he just wants it to stop, wants this conversation to be over, and he’s not sure what point he’s even trying to make anymore, but it doesn’t matter, because he knows the truth, and he needs to stop dancing around it. 

“It’s hard not to care about you,” Zach says. “And I used to feel stupid for caring, because you acted like you didn’t care about me, but—” 

“I did,” Willy says. 

“I know that now,” Zach says, and then he takes a deep breath. “I don’t know if I liked you then, but I definitely like you now.” 

“You like me?” Willy says, like after everything, he still thinks Zach could possibly still hold onto some of his old dumb, insecurity-induced resentment.

Zach kind of wants to laugh, but nothing’s really funny right now. 

“It’s not just— like, I care a lot about you, Will. And I tried to show you, with all the— y’know.”

“Sex?” Willy says. 

“Not just that,” Zach says. “I mean, that was part of it, but— we talked. And you called, and— I like you, and I care about you, and you’re— I guess, I’m trying to say that you’re important to me, in a lot of ways.” 

“Is that actually what you’re trying to say?” 

“Sort of,” Zach says, but he doesn’t say anything else, just stares at his feet as he feels Willy’s eyes burning a hole into him. He feels words getting caught in his throat, feelings he didn’t know were there before but now lie on top of everything else, neat and clear and true as all the rest of it. 

It’s a simple thought, and an easy one to find the words for, but it’s the hardest thing in the world to say. 

“I can’t tell if you’re trying to push me away or pull me closer,” Willy says, after a silence that feels like it lasts a million years. 

Zach shrugs. “I don’t want to push you away.” 

“Not what you said last night.” 

“I was mad,” Zach says. “You know that’s not what I want.” 

“I don’t know what you want,” Willy says. “I don’t even know if you know what you want.” 

If Zach’s being honest, he’s not quite sure either. “I don’t want to watch you flirt with other people.” 

“That’s it?” 

“I want— fuck, I don’t know, I want to get dinner with you,” he says.

Willy blinks, opens his mouth like he’s gonna say something before closing it again. 

“Sorry,” Zach says. “Just— I liked getting to know you, okay? And I kind of want to keep—” 

“I don’t get it,” Willy says. “I thought— are you—” 

“I  _ like  _ you,” Zach says. “I like you so much.” 

“But you mean— you  _ like _ me? Like— like-like?” 

“You’re 21,” Zach says. “You can’t say like-like when you’re 21.”

“I’m 22, actually,” Willy says. “Zach—”

“Like-like is something middle schoolers say,” Zach says, cutting him off. “We’re adults.” 

“Doesn’t mean we always have to act like it,” Willy says, cautious and gentle and perfect, and Zach feels the words pushed higher, threatening to escape at any moment. 

“Not always,” he says instead. “But this is something we should be serious about.” 

“What is?” 

“This. Us.” Zach flinches. “I didn’t mean to make this into something cheesy.” 

“I don’t mind,” Willy says, and Zach wants to tangle their fingers together, wants to pull Willy in and kiss him desperately just to shut himself up. 

“I’m usually good at romance, I swear,” Zach says.

“So this is romance, then?”

Zach shrugs. “Something like it.” 

“Oh,” is all Willy says, and then they’re both quiet for a few long moments. There’s something roaring in Zach’s ears, maybe wind or the sound of his thoughts or distant traffic or some thunderstorm going on in front of his eyes that he can’t be bothered to notice. 

Zach takes a breath, hears Willy do the same. 

“What now, then?” Willy finally asks. 

“I don’t know,” Zach says. 

“Am I reading this wrong?” Willy says. “It feels—” 

“Yeah,” Zach says, because he knows he’s fucking this up, a little, too terrified by things he’s not ready to say to actually move on. 

Confessing has always been the hard part, but this has another layer, and it’s keeping Zach’s eyes focused on the floor. 

“You like me,” Willy says. 

“I do.” 

“You— you want me.” 

“Yeah,” Zach says, breathy and overwhelmed, because he really does, really, so much that it feels like he’s cutting himself open when he says it out loud. 

“So then why aren’t we kissing, or something?” Willy asks. 

Zach gulps. “I kind of… can’t?” 

“You can’t,” Willy echoes. 

“I mean, hopefully I’ll be able to eventually, but— I don’t know, I can’t look at your face right now.” 

“Oh,” Willy says. “I hadn’t noticed, actually.” 

“Really?” Zach says. 

“I’ve been staring at your floor for the last few minutes,” Willy says. “I love the grain on this wood.” 

“Thanks,” Zach says, and then he forces himself to look up. 

Willy’s face is red in patches, there are bags under his eyes, and his hair is going in every different direction. There are weird clumps in his eyelashes, a pimple on his chin, and a patch on the underside of his jaw that he’d probably missed while shaving. 

He’s… kind of a mess, really. 

He’s also everything Zach wants in the world. 

He runs a hand up Willy’s arm, over his shoulder and finally cupping the underside of his jaw, and he watches Willy’s eyes the whole time he does it, until, finally, he can see Willy’s piercing blue, surprised, frozen, terrified, exhausted wide eyes. 

“I really like you too,” Willy says, but Zach hadn’t been waiting to hear the words, because he can feel it in the way Willy’s trembling the same way he is— not outright, not terrified, just a buzzing under the skin that goes external like he’s too full to handle it. They’re both these messy masses of charge and the best kind of fear, and Zach is pretty sure that combining the two of them right now will be like some sort of supernova of emotions. 

But, like, he can’t not kiss him anymore, and that outweighs the fear and general feeling of incoherent confused screaming going on in his head. 

Zach leans in so fast he surprises both of them, but Willy surges up to meet him halfway, and when they kiss it’s a little like they’re holding on for dear life. Willy’s hands are twisted up in Zach’s shirt, probably damaging the fabric, but then again, Zach has to actively remind himself not to squeeze Willy’s hips so hard he leaves bruises. He wants to feel Willy everywhere, hold him as close as humanly possible to say,  _ I want you in every way a person can want another person,  _ without actually having to use words. 

“I love you,” Zach says against Willy’s mouth. “Holy fuck, I love you—” 

“I love you too, yeah,” Willy says, and Zach feels like he’s being crushed by his own heartbeat, but he can’t fucking do anything but kiss Willy and keep letting every small thought that pops into his head escape him. 

“You feel so good,” Zach says.

“You feel better,” Willy says. “God, can you fuck me?” 

“Not feeling patient enough to do it well,” Zach says. 

“Jesus,” Willy says. “Fuck, yeah, no, me too.” 

“Let me suck you off,” Zach says. 

“How about— like this?” Willy says, shifting so that Zach’s thigh is pressed right up against his dick. “So we don’t have to move?” 

“What?” 

“Like—” Willy grinds against Zach’s leg, throws his head back and makes this incredible groaning noise. “Just here.” 

“Willy,” Zach says.  

“Hold me here,” Willy says. “Close. Don’t let me go.” 

Zach couldn’t even begin to imagine doing anything else. 

“Do you wanna, like, take off your clothes—”

“I don’t care,” Willy says. “I’m not letting go, holy fuck.”

“You’re so—”

“You’re not allowed to say anything mean,” Willy says. “Not even as a joke. Not right now, at least.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Zach says, and he doesn’t even bother being offended by Willy even thinking that he would, just skips right to reassuring. “I was just gonna say that you’re fucking incredible.”

“God,” Willy says. “I really hope you’re not fucking with me.”

“I promise I couldn’t,” Zach says, and he doesn’t even have to try to sound sincere. “I want you.”

“You want me,” Willy echoes, and he sounds like he’s only half there, the other half in a part of the stratosphere that Zach wants to explore every inch of. “Fuck, Zach, I love you.”

“I love you too,” Zach says, and he ignores how scary that is for now. “I love you, Willy.”

“Love you,” Willy says, and his voice is breathy and wrecked. “Fuck, gonna come.” 

“Please,” Zach says. “Fuck, yeah, come for me.” 

“Zach,” Willy barely manages to get out, and then the rest is just groans and gasps, the most beautiful fucking noises Zach has ever heard.  

It’s barely been any time at all, but there’s something about the intensity that makes it feel like it’s been building for ages. Willy is shaking against him, pressing his face into Zach’s shoulder and holding him even tighter, and Zach can feel the wet patch growing on his leg, and on his collarbone, too, from Willy’s mouth exhaling loud, almost like every breath is a sob. 

Even when it’s clear that Willy’s orgasm is done, Zach doesn’t let go, just waits for Willy to go limp against him the way he usually does, but it feels like Willy’s tense for a million years. 

“Will?” Zach says, once he’s pretty sure he’s gotten something of a grip on how fast time is passing. 

“Sorry,” Willy says, his voice muffled. 

“What are you apologizing for?” 

“I’m not really sure,” Willy says. “Not moving. Coming in my pants. Telling you I love you. One of those things, I think? Maybe all of them.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

After a beat, Zach says, “You don’t have to apologize for those things, you know. I kind of— like, I was into it.” 

“You’re into me not moving after sex?” Willy says. 

“Okay, not that part,” Zach says. “I’m fine with it, though. And the rest of it is good.” 

“I should change,” Willy says. “Should I go home, or—”

“What? No,” Zach says, rubbing a hand up and down Willy’s back, because Willy is still so fucking tense. “I have clothes you can borrow.” 

“Will they fit?” 

“I’d assume so,” Zach says. “We’re about the same size.” 

Willy peels himself off of Zach, not enough that they have to actually break apart, but he looks down between them, his eyes softly focused on Zach’s chest. “I always forget that.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Willy shrugs, still not meeting Zach’s eye. “You always feel bigger, I guess.” 

“Is that a good thing?” 

“Really good,” Willy says quickly. “It’s probably dumb, but— like, it makes me feel… safe, sort of. I don’t know.” 

Zach’s heart feels full, like a heart-shaped balloon is threatening to lift his feet off the ground, but also like he might legitimately shed a few tears because there’s not enough room for all this fucking love in his chest. 

“That’s good,” he says, probably sounding weird and way too fond, but whatever. “That’s great, that’s— you are safe.” 

“I love you,” Willy says, and this time Zach can see his cheeks go red. “Sorry.” 

“You’re sorry for loving me?” 

“I’m sorry I can’t stop saying it,” Willy says. “And for saying it too soon, probably.” 

“I said it first,” Zach points out. 

Willy finally looks up at Zach, brow furrowed. “Did you really?”

“Uh, yeah,” Zach says. “Do you not remember?”

“I remember you saying it,” Willy says. “I just don’t remember you saying it first.” 

“Well, I did,” Zach says. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes, I’m sure,” Zach says, the realization of the fact that he had, in fact, told Willy he loved him just starting to sink in. “I— holy shit.” 

“What?”

“I love you,” Zach says. “I love you, and you love me, and— just, holy shit.” 

“Holy shit,” Willy agrees. 

“Fuck, I—” Zach swallows down another ‘I love you,’ because if he says it again, he’s pretty sure he’ll never say any other words ever again. “Should we, like, shower?” 

“Great plan,” Willy says, and then he looks Zach right in the eye, still red-faced and overwhelmed. “I just— I don’t wanna move?” 

“My shower is maybe five feet away,” Zach says. 

“Too far,” Willy says, and it’s kind of a whine.

“Are you really comfortable here?” 

“Well, you’re here, so,” Willy says. 

“What if I leave?” 

“You can’t,” Willy says simply. “I’m never letting go of you.” 

“You’re ridiculous,” Zach says. 

“You love ridiculous.” 

“Fair point,” Zach says, and he knows he’s got the dopiest smile on his face, but he can’t fucking care. “What if I carried you?” 

“Carried me?” 

“To the shower,” Zach says. “If you don’t wanna let go.” 

“What, like, koala style?” 

“More or less,” Zach says. “I think they do that in The Notebook.” 

“They do,” Willy says. “We should watch that.” 

“Later,” Zach says, and then he puts his hands on Willy’s waist. “Alright, jump up.” 

“You sure?” Willy asks, and when Zach nods, he gives a small jump and wraps his legs around Zach’s waist. 

He’s a little heavy, but Zach is pretty strong. Willy runs his fingers through Zach’s hair as Zach carefully navigates them down the hallway, and it’s not exactly the most romantic thing in the world, but Willy seems like he’s starting to relax a little more. 

“This is, like, my ultimate fantasy,” Willy says, as Zach very slowly makes his way through the bathroom door. “Just so you know.” 

“Just the carrying part?” 

“Well, I mean, there’s usually kissing, but the carrying is nice too,” Willy says, running his thumb along Zach’s hairline. 

“You can kiss me,” Zach says, even though his arms are getting tired and he kind of wants to put him down. He wants to kiss him more, though, so he figures that takes priority here. 

“Really?”

“Yes,” Zach says, then tilts his head and leans in, kissing Willy like it’s the easiest thing in the world. 

It feels new, kissing Willy like this, which is weird, because Zach’s spent an entire summer having sex with him, but it’s different now, because they love each other, and they really, really, really, really like each other too. He’s not sure exactly what the difference is between those two things, or which one of them is making it hard to stop smiling against Willy’s mouth right now, but he figures it doesn’t matter. 

“Alright,” Zach says, when his arms start to give out. “We should really shower, you’re kind of a mess.” 

“We’re kind of a mess,” Willy corrects, but he dismounts carefully, and Zach is thankful when he doesn’t bump against the sink. 

They’re both worn-down and absolutely disgusting, but as Zach strips off his shirt and jeans, Willy just nervously picks at his hem, and the tension from before is back. 

“What’s up?” Zach says, trying to keep his voice gentle. “If you don’t wanna shower together—” 

“I do,” Willy says quickly, then yanks his shirt over his head like he’s trying to prove it, which backfires when he clutches it to his chest. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Zach says. “Just tell me what’s up.” 

“It’s nothing,” Willy says. “It’s a shitty thought to have.” 

“I can handle it,” Zach says. “If you need to share, I mean. I won’t judge.” 

“It’s about you. Us,” Willy says. 

Zach’s stomach sinks, and he suddenly also very much wishes he wasn’t naked. “Well, now you’ve gotta tell me.” 

“Don’t be mad,” Willy says. “It’s not an actual thing, I think, just— you know how sometimes you’re happy, and then out of nowhere, your brain tells you the worst things in the world?” 

“Sure,” Zach says. 

“Well, my brain decided that the worst thing in the world would be if I fell out of love with you the second I finally did something about it,” Willy says, staring at his feet and red all the way down to his chest. “I don’t fucking know, I don’t wanna kill the mood—” 

“Do you think you’re gonna fall out of love with me?” Zach says.

“No,” Willy says quickly. “It’s just that I’m trying to figure out how I’m gonna screw this up.” 

“Maybe you should stop thinking so much, then,” Zach says, and then he brushes a thumb over Willy’s cheek. “Listen, I don’t wanna tell you how you’re gonna feel, but it sounds to me like you’re just kinda scared, and that’s pretty normal.” 

“Is it?” Willy asks, like he’s trying to lighten the mood, but Zach needs them to stay serious for a little longer. 

“It is,” Zach says. “This is kind of a big deal, right?” 

“It is to me if it is to you,” Willy says. 

“It definitely is for me,” Zach says. “I haven’t— like, it’s been ages since I wanted someone like this.” 

“It’s been ages since I wanted someone for this long,” Willy says. “I didn’t even know it was possible to like someone and be liked back, like this.” 

“It certainly is rare,” Zach says. “But— we’re here now, right?”

“Right,” Willy says. “We’re here. And in love.” 

“And that means if we’re scared, we’re scared together,” Zach says, and Willy’s face does something beautiful and complicated and overwhelmed and Zach can’t look away. 

“God,” Willy says. “This is, like, the best kind of terrifying ever.” 

Zach’s pretty sure that’s the very definition of being in love, but he’s not positive, because he’s never felt this way about another person, like the fact that it’s Willy that he loves changes what love is and what it means and what he wants. 

“I feel that,” Zach says, instead of the rest of it. “So, shower?” 

“Can you wash my hair for me?” Willy asks. 

“Yeah, of course,” Zach says. 

“Good,” Willy says. 

As Zach starts up the water, he lets Willy ramble, and tries not to think about how naked they are, and how being naked like this is different than being naked used to be, a weird hybrid of locker room easy with the intimacy of being in love and the fact that Willy’s come is all over both of them. This isn’t shower sex, just getting clean together, and it’s… sort of new, and also sort of not, and thrilling and strange and wonderful, just like everything else this morning. 

“Just so you know,” Willy says. “If I act weird, it’s probably because I have no idea what I’m doing.” 

“Same here, bud,” Zach says. 

“Bud,” Willy echoes, laughing a bit. “But seriously— I’ve never had anyone who actually wanted me to stick around.”

“Well, I do,” Zach says, because it’s the truth, and he’ll happily say it until Willy believes him. 

“I know you do,” Willy says. “But— you’ll be patient, right? You’ll let me know if I’m fucking up?” 

“I will,” Zach says, and then he grabs Willy’s hand and squeezes it. “I promise.” 

Willy meets his gaze, like he’s looking for something in Zach’s eyes, and he apparently finds it, because he nods once. “Good,” he says. “How’s the water?” 

“Hot,” Zach says. “Ready to step in?” 

“Let’s do this,” Willy says, kind of ridiculous, and Zach’s feeling that same kind of nervous, which he probably shouldn’t be nervous about, but it already is making him feel better, knowing they’re on the same page. 

It’s still only the morning, but so fucking much has happened already. Zach really needs to get his feet on the ground again at some point, so he steps into the shower, Willy following close behind him, and lets the spray fall on his skin and the sound of water hitting tile drown out his thoughts as he pulls Willy into a simple, easy kiss, already feeling lighter and cleaner and more ready to face the day ahead.


	6. Chapter 6

(Willy jumps into everything headfirst, and that’s probably a habit he should deal with. 

It’s easy to trust people, he thinks. Others don’t agree, but even Kappy, who pretends to be boring and heartless, trusts people. Kappy doesn’t even have to like someone to trust them, or to care about them; he’s all wry exterior, but underneath, he’s a mushy ball of caring trust. 

Zach’s a little bit the opposite, because Zach is the least trusting person Willy’s ever met, and the people he does trust, he trusts way too much. 

Namely himself. 

Not that there’s anything wrong with the fact that Zach tends to stick to his guns, but— it’s like, he takes his first impressions and sets them in stone, and then he thinks he’s smart, so he never questions anything that comes from his own head. 

Willy’s got the advantage there; he’s a fucking idiot, and glad about it, too. Smart people walk around with their heads up their asses, but Willy asks questions and gets information because he would never, ever, in a million years assume he knows anything helpful or useful in any capacity. 

It’s something he explains to Zach as he casually is listing off all his insecurities about their potentially-maybe-relationship about 48 hours in. Zach is cooking dinner, but also is a surprisingly good listener, once he decides that something is worth listening to. Which Willy, apparently, has been for a while, and while he appreciates it, he kind of questions Zach’s judgment on that. 

But Zach just nods thoughtfully. “I think you’re right,” Zach says. “But I think I’m dumber than you’re giving me credit for. And you’re not an idiot. That was, like, a pretty smart thing to say.” 

“Shush, don’t go giving me a big head head about my intellect,” Willy says. “Gotta keep it grounded.” 

“Right, because I’m into you for your humility,” Zach says, rolling his eyes, and then he actually presses a motherfucking kiss to Willy’s motherfucking cheek, like they’re married with three dogs and not at the very start of a journey that may or may not end there. 

See? May or may not. Willy’s gotten a lot better at tempering his expectations.

“You’re into me because I won you over with my killer sex skills,” Willy says, and he expects Zach to just laugh along, but instead, Zach gives him a look, that’s— it’s not heavy, exactly, but it’s also full, and kind of considering. 

He’s glad that Zach didn’t laugh along; he’s trying to be better about making himself the punchline of his own jokes and convincing people they’re funny, but Zach’s pretty good at handling it when he lets one slip by accident. 

“I’m into you for a lot of reasons, believe it or not,” Zach says, and then he squeezes Willy’s hand. Like most things Zach does, and most of the ways Zach does Willy, there are layers of intention that weight on the gesture and make it into something firm and sure. 

“You’re a little—” Willy cuts himself off.

“What?” Zach asks.

“Nothing,” Willy says. “It was stupid.” 

“Like, nice-stupid?” Zach says, and Willy nods. “Dude, you’re allowed to say sappy things. You get the early relationship free pass to be gross.”

He knows Zach doesn’t mean for it to sound scary, but it’s a little bit of a reminder that Willy has no fucking clue how relationships work, so it is. “It’s just kind of unbelievable, is all.”

“Yeah,” Zach says. “That’s— yeah.” 

Willy looks up at Zach, who’s blushing, for some reason. Zach blushes a lot, but this is a different kind of blush, more overwhelmed than embarrassed. 

“Your face is doing something weird,” is how Willy’s brain chooses to express that sentiment, but Zach huffs out a laugh, so Willy thinks he gets his message across. 

“I’m just thinking,” Zach says, and then he bites his lip. “I think you make me a better person.” 

“You mean, like, by comparison?” 

“No, idiot,” Zach says, sounding mostly fond. “I just— I think liking you brings out parts of me that are good. I’m more… patient, I guess.” 

“Because you have to be patient to deal with me,” Willy says, which is probably not the response Zach was hoping for, but it’s the place his mind goes. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Zach says quickly, but not like he’s scrambling. “It’s more like— what you were saying before, about how sometimes I assume I know things, so I don’t listen?” 

“I was talking about smart people in general.” 

“Sure,” Zach says. “But— I want to get better at listening to you. I don’t know, isn’t ‘you make me a better person’ a romantic thing to say?” He sounds light, but looks hesitant, like he doesn’t know if that really did feel good to hear. 

Which it did, but Willy likes that Zach’s leaving him room to say no. It’s a little bit like right after he’s cleaned his room, right now; it’s not always going to be this neat, but it’s easier to keep it this way at the start, and hopefully it’ll be alright when things start to get messy. 

“You’ve already shown a lot of improvement in that area,” Willy says honestly. “I’m gonna say a lot of dumb shit, though, so be warned.” 

“I’m excited to hear every word of it,” Zach says, not missing a beat, and Willy is too impressed to think of a comeback, so he just kisses him instead.)

……

(As it turns out, relationships are a lot easier than Willy had expected. At least, at the start, there’s barely any fighting, because going along with whatever Zach wants feels like the easiest thing in the world. 

And as the weeks go by, and opinions start to take precedence over ‘I don’t care as long as I’m with you,’ compromise also becomes easier. Willy’s picky, but he’s learned to pick his battles, and apparently Zach appreciates the weirdly specific shit Willy will say when they’re trying to decide on things, like, “I don’t want you to watch this movie just to be agreeable because I’m gonna be pissed off when you don’t wanna talk about it afterwards.” 

Zach kisses him for a while when he drops that into the conversation. Apparently that’s good communication, and not just Willy being too blunt, and apparently Zach has a  _ thing _ for good communication. 

That gets Willy to laugh. Teasing has only just started to come back into the conversation, which is kind of strange, but it’s not like they’d made a conscious decision to replace all the light chirping with sap. It just sort of happened, but now that’s wearing off, and Willy’s kind of delighted that there’s still, like, an actual relationship here. 

“You’re seriously turned on by  _ good communication, _ ” Willy says. “You’re such a nerd.”

“It’s like— you being a good boyfriend, I don’t know,” Zach says. 

“Kinky,” Willy says. 

“It’s not a sex thing,” Zach says. “It’s just— I like you a lot, sometimes I wanna kiss you over it, whatever.” 

Willy’s delight changes shape, a little bit, turns shyer and kind of overwhelmed. “You like me,” he echoes.

Zach bites his lip and turns bright red, but he’s still smiling. “Stop being cute, or I’m gonna have to kiss you again.” 

“You think I’m  _ cute,” _ Willy says, because he’s apparently not in the business of forming original thoughts anymore, but in his defense, all his brain power has been directed towards the cause of kissing Zach, which he does, practically jumping into his lap a second later and kissing him sloppily, neither of them able to stop smiling long enough to make out properly.

It’s probably not the first time they’ve made out for hours without it really leading anywhere, but it’s the first time Willy notes it. They put on a movie they mutually agree to not care about and kiss through it, but their clothes stay on because they can’t really be bothered to put in the energy to escalate things. 

It feels sweet, and nice, and Willy really does like sex with Zach, but he also likes feeling like he has all the time in the world to have sex with Zach. There’s no rush, no reason watching a movie together and just kissing and cuddling and having fun feels like something less, and— 

It’s the first time Willy lets go of something, he realizes— the feeling like if they stop having sex, they’ll stop having any reason to spend time together, and it’s not like he’d been aware that he’d been holding onto that, but still. 

There’s been a voice in the back of his head telling him that having Zach like this won’t last forever, and that he should use his time wisely, and that once this ends, there’s only loneliness and confusion and an overwhelming amount of bad, anonymous sex, just like before, so he should take advantage of having a boyfriend while he can. 

But the thing is, he’s pretty sure that voice is wrong, and also mean, so he mentally tells it to shut up, because that’s not how this works. 

It feels good, sort of mature, and Willy’s weirdly proud of himself for it. 

He celebrates by kissing Zach. 

Trust, Willy thinks, is great and important and a key part of any relationship, or whatever, but the thing no one tells you is that trust is also just  _ fun _ . Relationships are fun. Love—when it doesn’t feel like death and dying and sadness and evil and eternal loneliness—is really, really really fun.

“What’s the least sexy place to kiss someone?” 

“Probably, like, their foot,” Zach says, without really thinking about it. “Wait, why are you asking?” 

“No reason,” Willy says, faux innocent, but Zach probably sees right through it, because he doesn’t seem surprised when Willy kisses his big toe moments later.) 

…… 

(It’s a few days into the start of the preseason, and everyone’s out celebrating being back together and the promise of the year ahead. 

Willy is relatively sober, but Zach is definitively not, because he’d been dragged into shots with Connor and Mitch because of ‘hometown boys’ reasons. Willy suspects it was mostly so Mitch could force Zach to give him tips on how to date a teammate. The three of them are huddled together at a table, talking over each other at increasing volumes, while Willy is nursing a beer at the bar with John, passively listening to the conversation he and Naz are having and nominally participating.

Then, Willy hears Brownie loudly slur, “I just don’t get it, you didn’t even think he was funny. Do you think he’s funny now?” 

It’s almost definitely about Willy, and it feels very much like getting stabbed in the chest. He thinks back to the beginning of the summer, with Zach lying to him at the Marlies game, and maybe Willy should stop assuming people like him at all, because he’s been wrong twice already, apparently. 

It still hurts to think about. It’s still embarrassing, and still does a great job of making him feel like even his friends only tolerate him, and even then it’s only when he’s in a good mood. 

“My sense of humor evolved,” Zach says, quieter than Brownie’s yelling. Willy only hears it because he’s listening, now. 

“That doesn’t happen,” Brownie says. “You don’t just start thinking something’s funny out of nowhere.” 

“What are you talking about?” Mitch says. “That happens all the time. When Zach tried to get me to watch  _ The Office  _ I didn’t like it, but then I watched it with Aus a year later.” 

“Because you’re obsessed with Auston,” Brownie says. 

“And Zach’s obsessed with Willy,” Mitch says, like that proves his point. 

There’s a pause, and when Willy looks over his shoulder, he finds all three of them looking back. He mostly pays attention to Zach’s face, which is apparently content, probably because he’s looking at Willy. 

“We’re telling him not to break your heart,” Brownie calls, which makes Willy’s grip on his beer loosen, makes him feel cared about, makes his cheeks go a little red with embarrassment, but mostly just makes him  _ happy. _

“You’re next,” Mitch calls. “It’s good cop/bad cop style, so be prepared.” 

Willy’s teammates are such losers. It’s pretty adorable. 

He gives them a thumbs up, which apparently satisfies them, and turns back around, face flush, grinning down into his drink.

“Not gonna ask who’s the good cop and who’s the bad cop?” John asks, in the wry voice he uses to tell jokes that Willy’s still getting used to. 

“Mitchy’s the good cop,” Willy and Naz say in unison. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Willy sees Auston’s head turn away from his conversation with Mo, probably at the mention of Mitch’s name, but he locks eyes with Willy, looks at him consideringly for a second, then nods in the direction of the door and raises his eyebrows. 

Willy gets the message pretty easily. 

He hasn’t talked to Auston about it yet. He’s been too wrapped up in Zach to really have had time to explain it to the rest of the world. They’ve mostly told people by letting word spread on its own, and by generally not keeping it a secret, and it worked for a few weeks, until Dermott broke the silent agreement to pretend that this was no big deal and sent many messages to the group chat using many, many question marks.

Willy had never thought about what happens when two friends start dating, really. He knew you had to tell people, but the logistics of telling people shit like that is kind of… weird. Zach hadn’t known what to do to make it not-weird, and Willy thinks there should be some sort of protocol for this, but apparently, there is not, so they sort of just let the news leak out, and hoped their friends would fill in the blanks. 

And it’s not anyone’s business but theirs, really, but Auston— he’d been around for the start of Willy’s gay crisis, had seen the whole thing before the season ended too abruptly and Willy was still in the process of figuring shit out, so then a bunch of guys happened, and then Zach happened, and Willy hadn’t told Auston about any of it. 

There’s no bitterness between them, he thinks, but it feels like there’s some apologizing to do. 

It’s nighttime outside, cold and empty compared to the loud warmth of the bar, and it feels like the right place for this conversation to happen. Willy wants to have it, and wanting to have conversations is a very new thing for Willy, but he’s always been pretty good with change. 

“I told Marns the shovel talk was a dumb idea,” Auston says. 

Willy shrugs. “Some dumb ideas work out.” 

“I guess,” Auston says. “I just don’t think you and Hyms really need to hear the same things, though.”

“What do I need to hear, then?” 

“That you’re good together,” Auston says. “And you probably won’t fuck it up.”

“Probably,” Willy echoes. 

“I’m happy for you guys,” Auston says. “I mean, he was a dick at that game, but— you worked it out, right?” 

“Yeah,” Willy says. “He’s not a bad dude.” 

“Romantic,” Auston deadpans. 

“I’m just saying,” Willy says. “He apologized.”

“Alright,” Auston says. 

“He told me he wanted to be a better person,” Willy says. “Because of me.” 

“Is it the same for you?”

Willy frowns. “I mean, I— I still get to be myself, right? Even the annoying parts?” 

“Fuck if I know,” Auston says. “But, yeah, probably.” 

“I think we sort of rushed into things,” Willy says. 

Auston shrugs. “I don’t know how it happened, so I can’t really say.” 

“It was kind of messed up,” Willy says. 

“I figured,” Auston says. “He’s not great at listening, and you’re not great at saying things clearly.” 

It’s kind of rude, considering Auston hasn’t spoken to Willy all that much since everything went down, and it’s not like Auston’s exactly great at saying what needs to be said, either. 

“He’s afraid you’re gonna get bored with him,” Auston says. “That’s what Mitchy told me.” 

“And he pulled that out of his ass?” 

Auston tilts his head, noncommittal. “He’s good at reading these things, usually.” 

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Willy says, “but I think you and Marns should stop using my relationship to talk about your own shit.” 

“We’re not—”

“You are,” Willy says, cutting him off. 

He feels a little torn, because Auston’s someone he trusts, but he realized recently that Auston tends to see Willy’s problems as variations on his own. For all that they are very similar people, there are some pretty key differences. 

“You’re probably gonna get out of a drunk shovel talk from Brownie and Mitch,” Auston says. “You’re welcome for that.” 

It’s an out, an invitation for sarcasm, but there’s something that’s been bothering Willy, so he doesn’t take it. “Why is no one surprised that I’m dating a guy?” 

Auston is quiet for a long time after that, thinking. 

Willy waits patiently. 

“It’s because people don’t know if they should’ve known, I think,” Auston says. “So they just play along.”

“Right,” Willy says, and he feels weird. 

It’s been a complicated summer. He thinks it’s starting to catch up to him.)

…… 

(Willy tries to cook dinner for Zach a few days later, because he copes with lingering bad feelings by doing cute shit. 

He almost sets Zach’s kitchen on fire. 

Fortunately for Willy, Zach seems largely unbothered by it, and really, that’s the reasonable response, but Willy feels a little bit like crying at it, and he feels stupid for it. 

A part of him wants to not let Zach know, but Zach would probably want to know, and Willy’s usually happier when he lets Zach help him with things like this. 

“I don’t know,” Willy says. “I just wanted to do something nice, but it turned to shit, and now I’m just upset about everything.” 

“What’s everything?” Zach says, patient. 

Willy turns to look at him, and it’s weird, because he’s expecting Zach to look like a stranger any day now, but he doesn’t. He’s still the same Zach he’s always been. Willy’s just got a closer view now. 

“I’m, like… I’m coming out to people. By dating you.” 

“Oh,” Zach says, his voice cautious. For a second, Willy thinks he goes stiff, but he just shifts a little, so Willy’s legs are over his instead of having his head on his chest. It’s probably so they can look at each other. “Is that… okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah, but— is it weird that we’ve never talked about that stuff?” 

“What, coming out?” Zach says. 

Willy nods, then shrugs. “I mean, it’s not something I ever brought up, I guess, and you don’t really— you’re out, right?” 

“Ish,” Zach says. 

“Ish?” 

Zach hums. “I mean, I do what I do, date who I date, talk about it pretty openly, but, like— y’know. I don’t like to talk about it.” 

“Oh,” Willy says. “I mean, I don’t want to make you—”

“I meant, like, the coming out part,” Zach says. “I don’t like having to explain it. The whole thing is—” 

“Yeah,” Willy says. “I didn’t realize until this summer.” 

“Oh,” Zach says, like he’s not exactly surprised, but doesn’t know how to react. “Do you wanna… talk about it?” 

Willy shrugs. “Not really,” he says. “Maybe some other time. It just— felt weird that we’d never talked about it, and the dinner thing brought that up, somehow.” He’s not really sure how his train of thought landed him there, but it had made sense at the time. Zach doesn’t really need an explanation from him. 

“Alright,” Zach says. “Well, for the record, trying to cook and fucking up is definitely a thing.”

“Where is it a thing?” 

“On TV and stuff,” Zach says. “Someone tries to cook, and it goes horribly wrong, and it’s, like, a sitcom, so at the end of the episode they usually order pizza and say they appreciate the effort, and it becomes a cute story.” 

“I’m glad you find it cute,” Willy says, a little sad, and Zach just gives him an understanding smile, tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. 

“I don’t use that oven,” Zach admits. “It’s kind of buggy. Stovetop works fine, though, if you still wanna make something.” 

“Thought this is the part where we order pizza,” Willy says. 

“This isn’t a sitcom,” Zach says. “I mean, we can, but if you’re in the mood to cook, it’s still an option.” 

Willy thinks about it for a moment, then stands up. “Yeah, I could go for some stir fry.” 

It ends up being a pretty nice evening, all things considered, and by the time Willy’s falling asleep in Zach’s bed later that night, he feels better than he has since their first time out with the team. 

He forgets, sometimes, how much small things leave a bad taste in his mouth, but he and Zach are getting better at being patient with each other when they’re working through shit, and it’s making it easier to be patient with himself. 

They really do make each other better.)

…… 

It’s weird, how quickly Zach adjusts to having a fairly serious boyfriend, and it’s even weirder how quickly he adjusts to the fact that his fairly serious boyfriend is William Nylander. Zach had never thought about Willy as someone capable of something serious, before. He was just a guy he played with who was incredibly handsome and perpetually weird, and Zach could never figure out what was going on in his head. He didn’t even know how to be friends with him for three years, but one summer of hooking up and all of a sudden, Zach blinks and they’re boyfriends. Willy holds his hand when they walk down the street, and reminds people to take off their shoes when they come over to Zach’s place, and makes Zach pose for a billion pictures just because he thinks he looks good, which is usually when he’s wearing one of Willy’s shirts, or an old t-shirt that’s just a bit too tight. 

They wake up in the same bed most mornings, and sometimes they have lazy morning sex, teeth unbrushed and hair a mess, and it’s not even hot, just— close, and kind of pleasant, nice in the same way that sunrises and really soft blankets are nice. That everyday kind of special.

Before he knows it, Willy’s browsing for couple’s Halloween costume ideas, and then they’re meeting each other’s parents, and then Willy comes to Zach’s parents’ Hanukkah party and Zach goes to Willy’s for Christmas. They talk about shit, like how it feels to bring a guy as a date to these things, and Willy talks about Sweden and Zach talks about his plans for his next book and they’re fined relentlessly for sneaking into each other’s rooms on the road, and Zach doesn’t regret any of it. 

He wonders if it would be this good now if it wasn’t so bad before, but the hypothetical barely makes any sense. The part of Zach that didn’t like Willy seems so far away, like someone in a different life, thinking about a different person. He doesn’t know how he let himself go without this for so long, and it’s not like he knew he’d like him this much, but there’s always been a part of him that knew he was something special, someone worth getting to know. 

Mostly, Zach’s just glad that they ended up here eventually. He’s not sure if he believes in destiny or soulmates or whatever, but he thinks that some people are just good together, and he hopes that most of those people find each other. Willy fits Zach well, and Zach fits him back, and they just— they work. It hasn’t always been simple, and it isn’t always simple, but there are some parts that are, and those are the parts that matter. 

The fact is, Zach likes William Nylander. 

He likes him a lot.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> story's finished, updates will happen every few days! i love posting stories like this one serially, so i can see your reactions as it goes, so scream at me in the comments, or send me a message! i'm lottswrites on tumblr <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Playlist for i'll know it at the hook](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15686199) by [Blainespikachu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blainespikachu/pseuds/Blainespikachu)
  * [[podfic] I'll know it at the hook](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17038511) by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods)




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